Cricket Australia Likely to Lift David Warner’s Leadership Ban

The ‘Sandpaper-gate’ incident and ban on David Warner

This 35-year-old opening batsman was suspended from playing international and domestic cricket for 12 months and was subsequently banned from taking any leadership roles following the famous “Sandpaper-gate” incident. The whole cricketing fraternity was shocked during the incident. Steven Smith, David Warner, and Cameron Bancroft were involved in the ball-tampering scandal in 2018 during the Australia-South Africa test series hosted in Cape Town. They tried to make one side of the ball rough by using sandpaper to make the ball swing in the air. On discovering the incident, Steven Smith was suspended for two years from captaincy. In contrast, David Warner was banned from a leadership role for a lifetime as he was found to be the mastermind behind the ball-tampering idea. 

His contribution as a leader 

Before getting banned for the captaincy role, David Warner captained the Australian team for 3 ODI’s and 9 T20I’s, winning 3 and 8 of them, respectively. Under him, Australia won the 2017-18 Trans-Tasman Tri-Series against New Zealand and England. His record as a captain of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) is decent, as he guided SRH to win its maiden IPL title in 2016, scoring around 848 runs at an average of 60.57. David Warner was sacked as the captain of SRH due to management conflicts in the second leg of IPL 2021.

David Warner’s worthy comeback in 2019

After the one-year suspension from cricket, David Warner is no longer aggressive on the field and bats with complete composure. The Australian opener made a remarkable comeback during ICC CWC 2019, scoring 647 runs at an average of 71.88. He had a fantastic outing during the ICC T20I WC 2021 and was declared the “player of the tournament” for scoring 289 runs from seven innings at an average of 48.16.

What made CA reconsider its decision on Warner?

According to the report of News Corp Australia, David Warner showed interest in leading a Big Bash League franchise (BBL) franchise. Thus, making Cricket Australia reconsider its decision on the leadership ban of David Warner as CA can lose him to a competing T20 league. CA may hold a board meeting to discuss this issue soon. Steve Smith, who was also involved in the “Sandpaper” scandal, was appointed vice-captain during Ashes 2021-22. At the same time, CA did not remove the ban on the leadership of Warner till now. Many cricketing personalities expressed their disappointment on social media about the unfair decisions between Steven Smith and David Warner. Therefore, David Warner might be given one of the captaincy positions (captain or vice-captain) in one of the bilateral series before the T20I WC this year. He also might make a strong contender for the leadership role in the T20I World Cup 2022 hosted in Australia, owing to Eoin Morgan’s rough patch. Many cricketing personalities and fans eagerly await to see David Warner taking the leadership of the defending T20 World Cup winner Australia.