Anchor’s role will be crucial at World T20: Warner

NEW DELHI: The flat decks on offer during the ongoing IPL might have made the role of an anchor batter irrelevant to an extent but Delhi Capitals opener David Warner says such players will play a key role during the World T20 in the Caribbean where slow turners will test all the batters.

India’s Virat Kohli and KL Rahul are such players with old school approach where they still build an innings before going hammer and tongs but the likes of Travis Head, Heinrich Klaasen, Jos Buttler and Jake-Fraser McGurk have been simply unstoppable in their start-to- finish mayhem.

Asked if batting template in IPL can be replicated in the World T20, Warner replied in a negative.

“They (pitches in West Indies) can be slower and they’re going to turn a bit. I don’t think they’re going to be as compact as they are here. You know, I’ve played a lot of cricket over there. I’ve played in the CPL. The wickets tend to get a little bit lower and slower,” Warner said.

“Even when we played there in 2010 World Cup, the pitches there weren’t high-scoring. That’s when you did need an anchor. Someone like Mike Hussey came out and scored runs for us. He had to come and sort of knock it around,” Warner said while recalling the 2010 edition where Australia finished runners-up.

“It’s going to be completely different there. Add the natural elements as well. There’s going to be predominantly day games.

“So the ball definitely will not be swinging like here at least in India. Here for first four or five overs, the ball can swing and could be challenging so. The pitches in Caribbean being dry, the ball will get roughed up and it’s going to spin,” the dashing left-hander said.

With Abhishek Sharma scoring 46 off 12 balls, Jake- Fraser McGurk completing 50 off 15 balls and Travis Head scoring his 100 off just 39 balls, Warner feels that unless there are a good conducive bowling conditions like one gets in Test matches across the globe, “good bowlers won’t be able to get good batters out”.

Hyderabad’s top three scores this season are 287, 277 and 266, which is an indicator of the complete evolution of T20 batsmanship. “The wickets have been very good. They’ve been very flat, very compact and very high-scoring. And when you got small boundaries, you’re going to see very high scores,” he was straight in his observation.