'The 12 months has done me well. I'm nice and refreshed.'
David Warner was all smiles as he celebrated Sunrisers Hyderabad's crushing victory over Kolkata Knight Riders with his daughters, Ivy Mae and Indi Rae, in Hyderabad on Sunday.
The Australian batsman, who returned to competitive cricket in this IPL after serving a one-year ban for ball tampering, is proving unstoppable. He is atop the list of run-getters in IPL-12, having amassed 517 runs from nine games, at an impressive average of 73 and a strike rate of 148.
His sensational showing with the bat made Australia pick him for the 2019 World Cup.
"The 12 months has done me well," Warner said earlier this month. "I'm nice and refreshed."
It has been a quick reversal in fortunes for Warner, who only a year back was resigned to the prospect of never playing cricket for Australia again after his 12-month ban.
“There’s a tiny ray of hope that I may one day be given the privilege of playing for my country again but I’m resigned to the fact that that may never happen again,” he had said last year following the ball tampering scandal.
Warner was identified by a Cricket Australia investigation as the main instigator of the plan to scuff up the ball with sandpaper during the third Test against South Africa in March last year.
But all that seems to be behind him now; he is hungry to make up for lost time with. His string of smashing performances with the bat in the IPL 12 only confirms that!
