Focused Warner looking to be clinical

New Zealand beware.

David Warner may have been short on runs at this World Cup - apart from his record-breaking 178 against Afghanistan - but the aggressive opener says he's hitting the ball as well as he has all summer.

Which should serve as a stern warning to New Zealand's bowlers ahead of Sunday's World Cup final, given the 2014-15 season has been another powerful campaign for the man known as 'Bull'.

Warner has scored six centuries for Australia in Test and 50-over cricket this summer; three in the Commonwealth Bank Test series against India, and one each in the Carlton Mid ODI Tri-Series, Australia's World Cup warm-up matches, and the tournament itself.

But runs have been in short supply in the past six weeks; Warner's record-breaking century against Afghanistan has been his only score above 40 in seven innings in the World Cup.

Warner says the manner of his recent dismissals has been 'causing a bit of a stir in his mind', including his seven-ball stay of 12 against India on Thursday, which ended when a leading edge from the substantial chunk of willow that is his cricket bat ballooned to Virat Kohli at mid-off.

Highlights of Australia's win over India

But the left-hander is confident it's a matter of when and not if he converts one of his recent short stays at the crease into an innings of more substance.

"I feel like I'm hitting the ball as good as I have all summer," Warner told Big Sports Breakfast.

"It's just those easy outs that are causing a bit of a stir in my mind.

"As we've spoken about before, it's not great to have big edges (on your bat) sometimes.

"But every time I've come in I've looked a million dollars, I've hit every ball in the middle and I've just got to find a way to get past that (first) 10 overs, be clinical and bat deep."

One man who has had little trouble batting deep this summer is Steve Smith, whose match-winning century against India on Thursday was his seventh of a remarkable summer that has yielded 921 runs against the Indians alone.

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The 25-year-old has seemed impossible to stop for almost four months, apart from a brief dip in form in February that produced three single-figure scores from four innings.

Smith said last week the run of low scores were due mainly to his fast feet, normally one of his strengths, which were moving him too far across his crease and leaving him vulnerable to a full delivery speared in to middle and leg stumps. 

But having re-adjusted where he marks his guard to better replicate his position on the crease from the Test summer, Smith has stormed back into form with scores of 95, 72, 65 and 105.

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Warner says Smith's ability to identify the small technical flaw and quickly rectify it is further proof of his impressive development this summer.

"He's playing fantastic cricket at the moment, he's batting on a different surface to every other person out there," Warner said.

"There was a period there for a couple of innings there where he got bowled around his legs and he got lbw, and I think he was a little bit worried.

"And I think he's shortened his step from leg stump across (the crease), which is fantastic and great to see him work out that little pattern there.

"Because some of us were a little worried that that day might happen where it would play on his mind a little bit.

"But being the classy cricketer that he is, he summed things up pretty well."