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Warner praises gritty limited overs unit

Sydney - Stand in Australian Skipper David Warner lauded a gritty performance from Australia's limited over units after the men from down under claimed a T20I series win on the back of ODI success.

Warner credited the batsmen who stayed on from the Test team with showing great adaptability and fight.

The captain took the opportunity to yet again criticize the pitches in Sri Lanka, which has been a recurring gripe of the Australian's almost since arriving on the island.

Warner said: "I think the guys showed a lot of determination and fight to overcome the conditions, which were very, very challenging and something that we are not very used to.

 "The Test guys had to make an adjustment to make - from the Test match conditions to the one-day conditions.

"You saw scrappy cricket during the one-day series, where the highest score was 280 here. And then we were scrapping to get to 200. It was good grinding cricket. It was something that we're not used to. The encouraging signs mean that we've worked really hard to win both series."

Warner was quick to point out that success against spin in limited over cricket is something vastly different to handling tweakers in the Test arena: "We knew once the shine got off the ball, the ball was going to spin consistently.

"In one-day cricket it's a bit different - you can't have two in close with slip and a leg slip. It's just not possible. The reverse sweeps, sitting in the crease to pinch the ones and twos, and rotating the strike, are all much easier in this game than in the Tests, where it was very, very tough for us as a batting team.

"But the way the bowlers conducted themselves and reduced totals after losing the toss consistently, was a fantastic effort."

While Warner praised Glenn Maxwell for stepping into the openers role he indicated that once Aaron Finch returned to fitness, he will have to drop back down the order: "Maxwell is a very good player of spin inside the first six.

"He can chance his arm. He can reverse sweep and sweep. What he did today and the other day was no fluke. That's exactly what he can do when given the opportunity.

"We know with the team we have a structure there, and once Aaron Finch comes back in, he'll probably have to move down the order and assess what his game plan is again. We've seen him do it at the top, we've seen him doing it in the middle - there's no excuse."

Warner described the pitch in Colombo as being consistently the worst surface throughout the tour: "The wicket probably wasn't up to scratch in the games. In the last game at Pallekele the wicket was outstanding - I know we played 260, but both teams felt like the wicket was very encouraging. We could hit over the top. There was nice, consistent bounce. Here it was very, very tough."

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