David Warner’s return to form has come at the right time as Australia face off against England at the T20 World Cup

Australia can land an early Ashes blow against England at the T20 World Cup and the return to form of one key man is at just the right time.

Pat Cummins in action at the T20 World Cup against Sri Lanka (Photo by Alex Davidson/Getty Images)

David Warner “puffing out his chest” could be they key ingredient for Australia to land an early Ashes blow and take down white-hot England at the T20 World Cup.

Australian fast bowler Pat Cummins said the star opener had turned the corner after his match winning effort against Sri Lanka on Friday which the team hopes carries through not only the World Cup, but in to the Test summer.

Cummins dismissed the World Cup clash as a chance to land any real psychological blows ahead of this summer’s five Test showdown with England, given the significant different in personnel in the white-ball teams.

Five of England’s World Cup squad - Jonny Bairstow Jos Buttler, Dawid Malan, Chris Woakes and Mark Wood - are in the Ashes travelling party.

But Cummins said the Australians, and Warner in particular, would embrace the challenge of taking on England, the one-day World Cup champions and undefeated so far at the World Cup, a benchmark team in white-ball cricket.

“He (Warner) was fantastic. He’s also a big game player, he likes taking on the big teams. You’ll seem him puffing his chest out,” Cummins said.

“And he’s someone our whole team absolutely loves playing alongside, we all go with him. It’s fantastic to see him back in runs. he’s such a good player, we knew he wasn’t that far away.”

David Warner was back to his best against Sri Lanka (Photo by Alex Davidson/Getty Images)

Cummins said Warner, who entered the World Cup off two ducks and just three runs in four innings across the Indian Premier League and two warm-up games, was just going through “one of those patches”.

“Like all the great players, there is huge expectation he puts on himself, he’s been around long enough to know runs aren’t too far away,” he said.

“It’s frustrating, but every player who has been around for a decaded goes through those patches.

“He’s his own harshest critic, it was great to see him get some runs.”

Cummins has taken three wickets in the opening two games, despite only stepping out of quarantine early last week and playing first-up since the Indian Premier league was abandoned in April.,

The fast bowler opted out of the re-commenced IPL as he awaited the birth of his first child, a son, born the week before he left for the World Cup.

But he’s hit the ground running in the opening two games, confident he’d done the work to be ready.

“Maybe a little bit of it is relief. But this has been on my calendar for the last four or five months as kind of the main goal,” he said.

“We had a similar scenario last year where we had a big break and flew to England to play some one-dayers.

“I feel like this time I knew what I had to do when I got over here. It’s all come together so far.”