Michael Clarke lashed out at Cricket Australia (CA) for its double standards in handling the 2018 ball-tampering scandal after David Warner withdrew his application for overturning a lifetime leadership ban after the independent review panel wanted him to go through "public lynching."
The former Australian skipper further said that Warner has been made the scapegoat for the 2018 ball-tampering scandal while slamming the CA for its messy handling of the veteran opener’s captaincy ban. He also said that CA’s review of the scandal has been inconsistent.
Michael Clarke said on Big Sports Breakfast: “You can tell he's disappointed and frustrated. I think the other thing that probably hurts a little bit more is the fact Steve Smith is going to captain this Test match. I can understand Davey's disappointment. In regards to where Davey is with his age, he's unfortunately missed out on the captaincy opportunity in my opinion.”
He continued, “I don't think that's the concern, it's the fact it's taken so long to process this or to get to where it's at. I see it as very inconsistent. I find it very hard to believe it's okay for one but not okay for the other to have a leadership role. If CA decided all the guys involved in what went down in South Africa, none of them were going to play a leadership role, I think that's a fair call.”
He questioned CA’s double standard for Warner by saying: “But if it's okay for one, if it's okay for Smithy, it's got to be ok for (Cameron) Bancroft and it's got to be okay 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 further said that the matter will never die down if people continue to reopen the chapter while insisting a lot of players were involved in the scandal.
The Aussie said, “There's so much around how that was handled that was just not the right way. Starting from doing the crime - let's start there. How does it go away, 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's (only) bits and pieces of what went down is out there to protect so many people is the problem with all of this.”
Clarke signed off by saying, “If they want to make it public, the whole lot should be made public from start to finish. If it keeps coming up, how do you move on? How does cricket move on? Unfortunately for this Australian team, a lot of players that were involved then are involved now. So really it seems that until they retire this is just going to keep coming up because there's so many questions around what went down.”
(PTI inputs)
