How Australia prepared for life after David Warner

“There’s a lot of dialogue there just talking about what’s coming up, what’s important and all those things,” Smith said. “You want to have your best players available for the big tournaments or big series. stuff like this.

“Other than that I can’t really say much, it’s just going from series to series and seeing where everyone is mentally and physically and trying to put the best team in the park as much as possible.

“We always talk about what we have in mind, what our best preparation is. How can we say that we are physically and mentally fit, which is more important to be able to go out and perform. The schedule is pretty busy these days so it’s important to have guys in a good headspace to go out and perform. There is a lot of talk about that.”

On leaving the India tour with a hairline fracture to his elbow sustained in Delhi, Warner stated he was aware of the prospect of being dropped from the Test side this year and still intended to carry on as a white-ball international one way or another.

Former captain Ricky Ponting, who retired ahead of the 2012 Perth Test when his batting average waned, spoke earlier this week about how he felt Warner had missed the ideal opportunity to retire on his terms from the SCG in January .

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“I thought the absolute best time for Davey to retire, if he was even thinking about it, was after the Sydney test match here in Australia,” Ponting told the ICC Review podcast.

“He had just played his 100th Test in Melbourne and obviously scored 200 in the first innings down there. And, of course, saying goodbye in front of your home crowd is the way any player would like to see his career end.

“Now who knows, that opportunity might not come up again for Davey, you know. There are still almost 12 months to go before then.”

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