ICC T20 WC: Finch confirms Warner as his opening partner

Melbourne [Australia], October 6 (ANI): Australia limited-overs skipper Aaron Finch on Wednesday confirmed that he along with David Warner will open the batting for their side at the upcoming ICC Men's T20 World Cup.

Warner has not played a T20I for Australia since September 2020, and he has missed Australia's last 14 matches in the shortest format due to a combination of injury and schedule clashes.

He has also not been among the runs in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for SunRisers Hyderabad and the franchise dropped the left-handed batter from the playing XI as well.

"Yep, absolutely. He's (Warner) one of the best players to ever play to play the game for Australia. I've got no doubt that his preparation, while he would love to be playing for Hyderabad no doubt, I know that he's still training away. He'll be good to go," ESPNcricinfo quoted Finch as saying.

Finch will be entering the T20 World Cup under an injury cloud. He had missed Australia's tour of Bangladesh due to knee surgery.

"Over the last couple of weeks, my recovery has progressed really well so it's looking more and more likely that I'll be fit and ready to go for them. And just in terms of the intensity that I've been able to train, the amount of accelerations decelerations putting load through my knee, that's all really positive. So, yeah, I've got no issues," said Finch.

"I had probably my biggest session in terms of fielding, changing direction, and all that stuff with batting involved as well so that's gone as well as it could be. I had a meeting with the surgeon yesterday and he was really happy with where it's at," he added.

Australia squad: Aaron Finch (c), Ashton Agar, Pat Cummins (vc), Josh Hazlewood, Josh Inglis, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Kane Richardson, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Mitchell Swepson, Matthew Wade, David Warner, Adam Zampa. (ANI)