"I've pretty much accomplished everything" - David Warner drops a big retirement hint ahead of the 20-20 World Cup

Australian opener David Warner expressed his wish of captaining the Australian team again in a recent interview with Fox Sports. The southpaw is in talks to have his leadership ban wiped clean, paving the way for him to hold either the ODI captaincy or vice-captaincy, following Aaron Finch’s retirement.

Warner told reporters this month that he will chat with CA chief Nick Hockley in the coming weeks about a return to leadership.

“I haven’t had any conversations at all (yet). But look, I think at the end of the day any opportunity to captain would be a privilege. But, from my end, there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge, to have those conversations with Cricket Australia and my main focus is just actually playing cricket,” Warner said in an interview with foxsports.com.au.

“At the end of the day it’s almost a completely new ball game from when 2018 happened. I would be interested to see and hear what their thoughts are and what not. And then we can probably go from there,” he added.

Having won a 50-over World Cup, a 20-20 World Cup several ashes victories and even winning the Indian T20 league as a captain, Warner further said that he’s not one to look at black-and-white achievements, such as milestones or leadership titles. He also dropped a big retirement hint after the end of next year.

“My wife actually found a journal while unpacking some stuff from 2013. I wrote down what I wanted to achieve and when I was going to retire,” the 35-year-old said.

“I had 2033 but crossed out for 2023. I had like 20 (Test) hundreds, 20 ODI hundreds, 10 T20 hundreds, and over, I think, 6,000 Test runs, 5,000 ODI runs and 10,000 T20 runs. So I’ve pretty much ticked all them off bar two ODI (and two T20) hundreds,” he added.

“So, for me, going back to 2009, then 2013 labelling all that, I’ve pretty much accomplished everything I wanted to do. I’ve really enjoyed my time playing, I’ve still got a lot to give. And I think I owe the next generation of cricketers and the supporters that little bit extra,” Warner further added.

“My goal is to play until the end of next year at least and see where I’m at. There’s a lot of good kids coming through. Obviously me and Uz (Khawaja) open the batting in Test cricket, it’s a big hole to fill … to find one opener is hard but to find two is going to be very hard. I’ve always had the care to make sure I leave the game in a good spot, and that means teamwise as well,” the swashbuckling opener said.