Warner’s manager hits out at CA for being partial in investigation

Sydney, May 17 (IANS): Australia opener David Warner’s manager has blamed Cricket Australia (CA) for treating his client as well as Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft ‘despicably’ and not interviewing other players while investigating a 2018 ball-tampering scandal on the tour of South Africa.

CA banned the trio for involvement in ball-tampering during the Cape Town Test against South Africa. The matter is now being revisited after Bancroft, a greenhorn, told The Guardian that the bowlers may also have known about it.

“The report that was done, they didn’t interview all the players. The whole thing was so badly handled, it was a joke,” manager James Erskine was quoted as saying by The Age.

“But eventually the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, will come out and I know the whole truth. It doesn’t serve any purpose because the Australian public over a period of time got to dislike the Australian team because they didn’t behave particularly well,” he said.

Erskine said that had Warner, Smith and Bancroft taken any legal action against their ban, they would have won the case since it was very weak.

“There is absolutely no doubt that Smith, Warner and Bancroft were treated despicably. The fact of the matter is they did the wrong thing but the punishment didn’t fit the crime. I think if one or two of those players had taken legal action they would have won because of what the truth was.”

CA on Monday said that they have reached out to Bancroft and asked him to come forward with fresh information.

“We have maintained all the way through [that] if anyone had any new information relating to that incident we encourage them to come forward and discuss it with CA,” said CA high performance head Ben Oliver.

“Our integrity team has reached out to Cam extending that invitation if he does have any new information,” he said. “There was obviously a thorough investigation of that incident. There were actions taken on the back of that and since that time everyone involved in the team has worked incredibly hard to rebuild confidence and make Australia proud of the cricket team.”

CA interim chief executive officer Nick Hockley refused to comment on the issue and ended his one-minute media conference abruptly.