Melbourne: David Warner on Saturday slammed Cricket Australia (CA) for their lack of support during his appeal of his leadership ban, saying the issue affected his mental health ahead of the opening Test against South Africa. Warner was handed a life leadership ban in 2018 due to his role in the ball-tampering scandal.
The 36-year-old appealed against the ban earlier this year. Both Warner and CA wanted a closed-door hearing on the matter. The independent commissioners appointed by the board, however, insisted on making it public. Warner was then forced to withdraw his appeal earlier this month. This left-handed opener said before his 100th Test, “My mental health was not 100 percent before the Perth Test. It was challenging at that time.”
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He said, “If it was in my hands to fix it, I would have fixed things but I did not get any support from CA.” Warner has been struggling with poor form of late and faced further criticism after scores of zero and three in the Perth Test against South Africa. He has not scored a century in Tests since January 2020.
The aggressive batsman said he could not understand why the process took so long. He said, “I had approached CA on this issue in February. So we don’t know how it dragged on for so long. Only CA can answer this. (agency)