In an emotional rant, David Warner‘s wife Candice went after the Cricket Australia (CA) alleging that the board had tried hard to “wipe” the left-hander’s career from Australian cricket in the aftermath of the Sandpaper Gate scandal in 2018. She also acucsed that the board didn’t want David Warner to play for Australia again.
In the 2018 Cape Town Test between Australia and South Africa, David Warner is reported to have conjured the plan of having Cameron Bancroft tamper with a sandpaper on the ball to make it reverse.
David Warner and Smith were banned for a year and Warner was handed a lifetime ban on leading any team in Australia.
It was full-blown furor in the cricket world when this sandpaper gate scandal shocked everyone.
Candice was with her husband and daughters at the time in South Africa and were treated harshly out of the Cape Town. Recalling the tough times, Candice slammed the CA for their lack of support.
‘There was no support. Basically from when we left the hotel in South Africa, David was wiped. There was no Cricket Australia official helping him. There was nothing. It’s like: ‘Basically you fend for yourself now’. It was basically fended for yourself, see you later. Thanks for your services probably, we’re going to do our best for you not to ever come back and play cricket for our country again. We’re going to blame you for everything. And that’s what they did,” Candice Warner said on The Matty Johns Podcast.
Last year, David Warner had appealed for a reversal on his lifetime ban. But the CA had dragged the issue for long and it even demanded another public hearing to which the cricketer and his family were not in agreement to, eventually deciding to withdraw his appeal.
Steve Smith, who is now the vice-captain in Tests and ODIs, spoke in favor of his friend, David Warner, saying that it is “fundamentally incorrect” to ban someone from a leadership role for lifetime.
“From my point of view, banning someone for life from leadership is just fundamentally wrong. David’s served his time like I did. We know he’s a leader around the group and on and off the field is doing a tremendous job,” Steve Smith had said.
David Warner is currently playing for the Delhi Capitals in the Ashes and his next assignment for Australia is the WTC final against India in June.
