Australian cricket superstar David Warner revealed his misery with how Cricket Australia (CA) dealt with his lifetime captaincy ban following the ball-tampering saga in 2018. Warner, Steve Smith, and Cameron Bancroft were found guilty of tampering with the ball using sandpaper in the Newlands Test against South Africa almost five years ago. Smith and Warner dealt with intense scrutiny and received bans from the game. However, Warner was handed a lifetime captaincy ban.
Cut to November 2022, when the 36-year-old decided to submit an appeal to get his lifetime captaincy ban overturned. It came after Cricket Australia (CA) reworded its code of conduct while stating that players could not review a sanction once they have accepted it. However, the left-handed batsman later made up his mind to withdraw the appeal as a three-member independent panel decided that a hearing would take place in private.
David Warner blames CA for dragging the issues
Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, David Warner said, “It was ridiculous. I wanted to put it to bed and they kept on just dragging it out and not giving answers. No one wanted to be accountable; no one wanted to make a decision. You have an administration where there seemed to be a lack of leadership”.
“I actually felt disrespected in the way…”
Warner then explained how CA could have removed the sanction straight away. But he kept getting calls from lawyers in between Test matches. “They could have nipped it in the bud straight away, but I’m getting a phone call day one, two, three of the Test matches and speaking to lawyers, etc when I didn’t need to. I actually felt disrespected in the way that I wasn’t able to actually have a clear mind to play the game and concentrate on the game,” he further said.
“So, from that perspective, it wasn’t even like, ‘Oh, let’s stop and we’ll come back to this.’ It was nine months, it was launched in February (2022). I was extremely disappointed,” Warner added. The 36-year-old is now looking to find his form back in red-ball cricket, eyeing big knocks against India and England, in the ICC World Test Championship 2023 final and Ashes 2023, respectively.
