David Warner, the Australian cricketer, accused Cricket Australia of making his family ‘the washing machine for cricket’s dirty laundry’ and eventually went on to withdraw his captaincy ban review appeal. The incident traces back to 2018 when the ‘Sandpapergate Scandal’ rocked the entire Australian nation when the Baggy Greens toured South Africa.
Eventually, on the back of the incident, the likes of Steve Smith and Warner were banned for a year, while Cameron Bancroft served a ban of 9 months. In addition to it, there was a captaincy ban on Smith and the southpaw as well, which many felt was a bit harsh on these two.
Commenting on his appeal to review his captaincy ban, Warner said that he prioritises his family over the game and said that he has been working hard despite going through all the trauma and the criticism, making his return, one of the toughest of all.
“I have served and been subject to a crushing, unprecedented, penalty that has horribly impacted me and my family for the past nearly five years without the prospect of any relief until now,” Warner was quoted as saying in his statement.
David Warner’s manager James Erskine makes sensational claim
Amid all the chaos that is happening, James Erskine, the manager for Warner, opened up on the scandal and said that the truth will eventually come out. Further, the manager opened up on what caused the scandal to ignite into a big one and said that it was not fair on Warner to receive much hatred from the public.
“The truth will come out, let me tell you. There are lots of people. There’s two cricketers who put their hands up and said at the time, ‘Why don’t we all just tell the truth, they can’t fire all of us’. That’s what happened. Two senior executives were in the changing room in Hobart and basically were berating the team for losing against South Africa (in 2016) and Warner said we’ve got to reverse-swing the ball. The only way we can reverse-swing the ball is by tampering with it.” Erskine was quoted as saying.
“The Prime Minister came out, (at the time), (Malcolm) Turnbull came out and said this is a disgrace and whatever, I think he regrets those comments now, Cricket Australia had the whole process, the (Iain) Roy report was done in four days. Why Cricket Australia couldn’t have done a very sensible thing and said listen, it’s not legal that someone doesn’t have a right of appeal. It’s just absurd, why should he have to go through that, he has done everything he possibly could for Cricket Australia and for his team, and now he’s being treated like this… this is injustice at its greatest level,” he added.
