“Mistakes have been made which have damaged cricket”: Why was David Warner banned from Australia captaincy for life by Cricket Australia?

Why was David Warner banned from captaining Australia in the future across formats following an incident during South Africa tour in 2018.

Australian opener batter David Warner is likely to benefit from Cricket Australia’s proposal to change the rules and the code of conduct before its integrity head, which would make him eligible to appeal against the Australian captaincy ban imposed on him since the year 2018.

Warner is seen as the most appropriate individual to take over the ODI captaincy, after Aaron Finch decided to retire from the format post the recently concluded New Zealand series.

Despite other captaincy options for the role, Finch and even the present Australia Test skipper Pat Cummins have voiced their support for the Southpaw batter, who is also experiencing a decent run with the bat in the limited Overs format.

As for Warner, the 35-year-old is as ready as ever to take up the responsibility, while keen to sit down with the integrity team as well, to overturn the board’s decision on the lifetime ban.

Why was David Warner banned from captaining Australia?

It all happened during the third Test match at Cape Town, during Australia’s tour of South Africa in the year 2018.

Australia’s Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera while attempting to artificially change the condition of the ball using a sandpaper, to perhaps facilitate early reverse swing.

As per the investigation which was carried on later, it was found that David Warner was the one to have come up with the plan, and it had to be a junior player (Bancroft it was) to perform the task.

Warner had not only persuaded Bancroft to implement the plan, but also demonstrated before him, as to how the ball tampering was supposed to be done.

Skipper Steve Smith, on the other hand knew about the hatching of the potential plan in advance, and also directed the duo to conceal the evidence (sandpaper) at the field of play.

Post the investigation, Bancroft was banned for a nine-month period, while Warner and Smith were banned from playing international Cricket for one year.

Also, while Smith and Bancroft were banned from captaining Australia for at least the next two years, Warner was served a lifetime ban from the same for the rest of his international career.