David Warner believes he owes it to the game to become a coach when he retires

David Warner says Test matches are the pinnacle and giving back to the game in a coaching role is on the cards when he retires.

David Warner, left, wants to follow Ricky Ponting into coaching when he retires

David Warner wants to coach when his playing days are done.

The opener believes he owes it to the game to coach or mentor the next generation of players and says Ricky Ponting has shown a way for former stars to give back.

Warner revealed his intentions in an interview on this week’s Cricket Et Cetera podcast.

The 34-year-old former vice-captain is under a lifetime ban from “team leadership positions” in Australian cricket, but it is inconceivable the game would turn its back on him as a coach.

Coaching national teams has become an attractive prospect for retired stars.

Justin Langer receives more than $1m in his role as head coach of all three teams in what is a 12 months-a-year job, but most coaching roles in Australia pay a lot less.

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Retired greats such as Ponting and Simon Katich can earn more than half that for a few months in roles with franchises in the IPL and spend the rest of the year commentating or with their families. Both have also taken roles in England’s new Hundred competition.

Ponting was hired in the lead-up to the 2019 World Cup by Australia as a specialist assistant coach.

Asked on the Cricket Et Cetera podcast if he wanted to take on a role coaching, Warner’s reply suggests he had given the subject some thought.

“Definitely, I definitely would, I have aspirations to do that, for me first and foremost it would be working out what direction: is it going to be white ball, is it going to be Test cricket?” he said.

“I think I have a fair bit to offer all three forms, but you have got to start somewhere and I think the opportunities probably arise more with Twenty20 cricket because there is a lot more stuff going on with franchises. That’s probably where we would start.

“JL likes to bring in a lot of senior players from the past to be around the group. Even starting with little things like that and helping the next generation would be good, but I can take a leaf out of someone like Punter’s books.

“He went off the scene for a while and then came back. Almost started fresh with a new batch of players.

“It’s good to step away a little bit to see the outside view before you get back into the system.”

When it was suggested money — or the lack of it — was the biggest impediment, Warner disagreed.

“You have to have the love of the game, you have to want to coach these younger kids, I think it is important from my perspective that we give back to the game to keep producing these youngsters,” he said.

“If we want to produce cricketers for the future we play a big role in that.”

Warner says he never saw himself as an opener until he was asked to do it for the Test side. He learned the role on the job and admits he was lucky to be given a chance in Test and ODI, where now players get limited opportunity before being dropped.

“I am just lucky and grateful that I came through at the right time because there were a lot of great players — Brad Hodge is a perfect example — who could have had a Ricky Ponting career, we just don’t know,” he said.

Despite being categorised as a T20 specialist early, he believes Test cricket is the ultimate form.

“I think it is the pinnacle of cricket in general,” he said. “In my opinion you can only be described as a great cricketer if you have played Test cricket.”

Warner says he has not played in the BBL for many years since he found himself attempting to pull a ball off a good length in a Test match after returning from a T20 game.

“I was in that instinctive mode of Twenty20 cricket, after that it gelled with me to say, ‘You know what, let’s not play Big Bash, you’ve got five Test matches, give everything to those Test matches’,” he said.

“I made that decision not to play Twenty20 cricket in that time and I still won’t do that because it is very difficult to do that.

“I know I could master it if I tried, even last week we played a one-day game and we played a Shield game one day after that and straight away the ball is swinging and seaming and you feel like your hands are out there and you want to get on with it, it is very difficult at any level.

“It’s more about where does it fit in with where I am in my life. If I am still playing Test cricket, no, I definitely won’t be playing it just purely to get the mind right. If I was to retire or get dropped from Test cricket, it could be on the cards.”