11 January, 2009

David Warner Emerging New South Wales talent David Warner will make his Australian debut on Sunday night after coach Tim Nielsen confirmed he would play in the KFC Twenty20 international against South Africa at the MCG.

Twenty-nine-year-old Queenslander Ryan Harris and Warner's Blues team-mate Nathan Hauritz were both left out of the XI.

The swashbuckling Warner, who has clubbed 101 runs off just 62 balls in three KFC Big Bash matches at a strike rate of 162.90, will join a host of fresh faces in the national team and Nielsen admitted he was energised by the prospect of seeing players who are foreign to the Test arena wearing the green and gold.

"To see the likes of Warner and (Shaun) Marsh back in the squad, or in the squad for the first time, and (Luke) Ronchi having a run around (and Ben) Hilfenhaus there is going to be really exciting for us," he said on Sunday morning outside the team hotel in Southbank.

After nine Test matches in just 11 weeks, Nielsen is also anticipating the dramatic change of pace that the Twenty20 clash will bring in front of what is expected to be a crowd of nearly 80,000.

The highly-anticipated encounter will be another date in what has been an intense international workload for Australia since the start of October.

"I think we're playing a lot of cricket at the moment because in the past there's been series that have been cancelled or had to have been delayed," Nielsen explained.

"We're in a busy part of our future tours program, we have a couple of years every now and then where it's quieter, we're going into a very busy period."

"South Africa have just come off the back of that period for them so it's something we need to be aware of and we need to manage our players' programs accordingly."


One such player Nielsen said would need to be managed is captain Ricky Ponting who will lead Australia in a Twenty20 international in Melbourne for the first time.

"Coming up we play both the one-day series against South Africa and New Zealand and then the next day, after a Twenty20 game (against the Black Caps), we take off to South Africa for the Test series," he said.

"We'll certainly be aware of how much work our players are doing and trying to give them a bit of a rest at some stage mainly to ensure we don't take them to high injury-risk periods."

Australian team: Ricky Ponting (c), Michael Hussey, David Hussey, Ben Hilfenhaus, James Hopes, Nathan Bracken, Luke Ronchi, Shaun Marsh, Shaun Tait, David Warner, Cameron White. 12th man: Ryan Harris or Nathan Hauritz.