Warner fires another barb in sandpaper scandal
Steve Larkin |
David Warner has fired another barb at Cricket Australia with an incendiary social-media post as the sandpaper scandal continues to blaze.
A day after accusing CA of a cover-up, Warner has doubled-down as the controversy splitting Australian cricket shows no sign of abating.
Warner says he wasn’t given all the evidence before taking the brunt of punishment for the use of sandpaper in the now-infamous Cape Town Test in 2018.
On Saturday, Warner posted on Instagram that: “As far as I am aware, CA did not interview Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc or Nathan Lyon in their 2018 investigation.
“If that’s correct then how can CA push the idea that the bowlers didn’t know?
“It looks like they had decided who they wanted to blame from the very beginning … ran a shoddy investigation to serve the purpose and now they want to maintain the false narrative that the bowlers had no idea.
“That stinks of a cover up.”
After numerous media reports confirmed bowlers had indeed been interviewed by CA in its investigation, Warner on Sunday again took to Instagram to support his previous post.
“Just to clarify ‘As far as I am aware’ was the POINT,” he wrote.
“I was never told the bowlers had been interviewed or provided statements.
“That information would’ve been pretty useful when I was forced to make decisions back in 2018.
“Why weren’t we given all the evidence by CA?”
Warner had previously described CA’s investigation into the sandpaper scandal in South Africa as “botched”.
The internationally retired batsman was suspended by CA from all cricket for 12 months and stripped of the Test vice-captaincy.
Steve Smith was also suspended for a year by CA and lost the captaincy, while Cameron Bancroft was banned for nine months.
Bancroft was busted by television cameras with sandpaper in his trousers during the 2018 Cape Town Test against the South Africans.
The scandal has again erupted in the wake of Usman Khawaja’s autobiography, in which he alleges the entire Australian team knew of the ball tampering.
Khawaja also claimed the Australians had previously used ball-tampering tactics.
Australia’s Test captain Pat Cummins on Friday hit back at Khawaja, described the claims as “complete nonsense”, repeating his denial of any knowledge of a ball-tampering plan.
AAP