David Warner trains with Blues before leaving for Winnipeg gig

David Warner returned to training at Cricket NSW headquarters yesterday.

David Warner attending a women's cricket coaching clinic at the Marrara cricket ground last month.

David Warner returned to NSW training yesterday but has no contract and no permanent place in the state training squad.

He has, however, been picked up by the Winnipeg Hawks and will join Steve Smith for the inaugural Global T20 tournament in Canada next month.

Warner, Smith and Cameron Bancroft are all out of contract from the end of the financial year after being banned for their role in the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa.

They can play cricket at grade level but cannot play with any Australian or state sides until the bans end and have been encouraged to seek out competition where they can find it.

For fitness, Smith has been seen working with his ­father and a personal trainer in recent weeks.

The Canada league is being hastily assembled and looked set to fall over when arrangements for a player draft kept shifting but that event was held on Sunday.

Smith, along with Chris Lynn, was announced as marquee players two weeks earlier for the tournament, which is set to begin on June 28 in Toronto.

Smith will play for the Toronto Nationals in the series, which features five teams named after local cities and one which is owned by the West Indies board. All matches will be held on one ground, where organisers plan to build temporary stands and facilities.

Warner will play with another Australian, Ben McDermott, who has earned a reputation as a big hitting batsman in the BBL.

Former Australia limited-overs leg-spinner Fawad Ahmed, dropped from the Victorian contract list for this summer, will play for the Vancouver Knights and Lynn for the Edmonton Royals.

The league will comprise 22 matches with playoffs and the championship match on July 16.

Warner is also interested in playing in the NT Strike League in Darwin next month and has made a commitment to turn out for his Sydney club Randwick-Petersham next summer.

He and Smith cannot play BBL next summer or first-class cricket until next April, giving them precious little time to prove themselves for the World Cup in England, which begins in May.

Australia will be hoping the pair can also find the cricket to prepare for the Ashes series that follows that tournament.

The depleted Australian ODI squad is preparing for a one-day series against England and will play its first warm-up game on Thursday ahead of the first match next week.

Warner and Smith are absent and the three first choice bowlers, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins, are all injured as is allrounder Mitch Marsh.

Captain Tim Paine and the squad recently went on a low-key two-day tour of the battlefields on the Western Front.

Members of the squad took part in a wreath laying ceremony.

Paine said: “We’ve come over to have a look at the Western Front, something that’s been in motion for a couple of years now.

“We thought was a good idea for the team to come over as young Australian men to retrace the steps of some really brave Australians over 100 years ago.

“It’s been a really great exercise for us as young men to come and learn more about that, and there’s lots we can take out of it.

“We’ve seen so much stuff that I think we’d never thought we would have seen. I think it’s been amazing to go through the cemeteries and the battlegrounds and see how well they’ve been maintained. It’s been a real eye-opener, just the magnitude of it and the size of the cemeteries.

“(We’re) coming over to England now to play cricket … we’re obviously not going to war, but I think the importance of the things we can take from the men who came over so long ago is the teamwork and the mateship and the hard work and the things they did for each other.”