Former Australia captain Michael Clarke has accused his country’s cricket board of double standards and making David Warner the “scapegoat” in its sloppy handling of his suspension as captain following the ball-tampering scandal. Four years on from the scandal, Warner is still living with the leadership ban as accomplice Steve Smith happens to lead Australia in the ongoing day-night Test against the West Indies.
Unwilling to let his family be the “washing machine for cricket’s dirty laundry”, an angry Warner on Wednesday withdrew his application for the withdrawal of his lifetime leadership ban, saying the independent review panel wanted him “publicly lynched”.
Clarke expressed support for his former teammate, saying Cricket Australia’s assessment of the scandal was inconsistent.
“You can tell he’s disappointed and frustrated,” Clarke said on Big Sports Breakfast. “I think the other thing that probably hurts a bit more is the fact that Steve Smith is going to captain this Test match. I can understand Davey’s disappointment. As for where Davey is with his age, he’s sadly missed out on the captaincy opportunity. in my opinion I don’t think that’s the concern, it’s the fact that it’s taken so long to process this or to get to where it is.
“I see it as very inconsistent. I find it very hard to believe that it’s okay for one to have a leadership role but not okay for the other. If CA decided that all the guys involved in what’s going on in South Africa happened, none of them are going to play a leading role, I think that’s a fair decision.”
Clarke believes Warner was made a scapegoat for the 2018 incident.
“But if it’s OK for one, if it’s OK for Smithy, then it should be OK for (Cameron) Bancroft and it should be OK for Warner.
“I don’t know if it’s fair to make David Warner the complete scapegoat and say everyone else can go back to normal. We’ll forgive you, but we won’t forgive Davey.”
Clarke went on to say that he was not 100 percent behind any of the three being involved in a leadership role and that the scandal would continue until they retire.
“There’s so much to the way that was handled that it just wasn’t the right way,” Clarke said.
“To start with the commission of the crime – let’s start there. How does it go, don’t say anything. (Former South African captain) Faf du Plessis just wrote a book and it’s in his book.
“The fact that there are (just) bits and pieces of what happened is to protect so many people, that’s the problem with all of this. If they want to make it public, the whole thing has to go public from start to finish created.” “. If it keeps coming how do you move on? How does cricket move on? Unfortunately for this Australian team a lot of the players who were involved then are involved now. So it looks like until they retire this will just keep coming because there is so many questions are about what happened,” Clarke added.
Featured video of the day
Captain Rohit Sharma under scanner after India’s loss to Bangladesh
Topics mentioned in this article
