Former Australia vice-captain and main instigator of the ball tampering scandal in South Africa earlier this year, David Warner has resigned himself to completing his 12-month ban period from international and top-level cricket.
Warner, along with then captain Steve Smith was banned for a year and Cameron Bancroft was banned for nine months for playing main roles in ball tampering saga in Cape Town Test. Warner and Smith’s bans come to an end in March of 2019.
Australian Cricketers’ Association, with support from a faction of the public, has demanded to let the trio back into the international fold as early as December to face India in the four-Test series.
Neither Smith or Warner have commented publicly on the campaign, and it’s unknown whether the players were consulted by the ACA before they pitched the plea to Cricket Australia.
Warner told media on the sidelines of the grade cricket match, “What the ACA do they are representatives for us and we thank them for their support. At the end of the day, it’s quite fickle with the union and Cricket Australia. (Former CA director) Mark Taylor came out and said what he said and we all agree on some terms with that. But as players, we are here to do a job and that’s to come out here and play premier cricket and work our backsides off to make cricket a better game.”
His grade side Randwick Petersham lost to Steve Smith’s Sutherland in a last-over nail-biter.
Warner has seemingly made peace with the fact that he will be serving out his one-year ban and said, “At the end of the day I’m sitting here 12 months on the sideline, that’s my take on it. That’s why I want everyone to keep being positive about the guys that are playing (in the national team) and pump them up. We can’t keep sitting here going they’re going to be in or they’re not going to be in (for next year’s World Cup).”
“We just want the game to be pumped up as much as we can. We understand there is going to be a bit of negative impact on what happened but we just have to keep smiling and putting our best foot forward to make sure Australia is enjoying Australian cricket,” Warner concluded.
(Inputs: foxsports.com.au)
