David Warner leadership ban: The ticking time bomb Cricket Australia has feared for four years

The prospect of a David Warner tell-all book is a ticking time bomb Cricket Australia has been fearing for four years. What happens if he tells his side of the story?

Tick, tick, tick …. boom.

If you thought David Warner’s angry words about Cricket Australia’s delay over his leadership ban verdict set the cricket world ablaze, just hold that phone.

There’s just a chance it’s nothing more than the first flicker in a potentially blazing inferno.

Warner has signed to do a career ending autobiography and was originally counselled by his manager James Erskine not to blow up the building when it came to the ball tampering scandal.

Essentially to suck it up for the sake of his 30-year future in the game beyond the boundary.

But the temperature is rising rapidly and the lid is starting to hiss and wobble on top of the saucepan.

Erskine himself released a handbrake he has kept publicly fastened for four years to scorch rubber on SEN when he declared “there were far more than three people involved in this thing’’ and “the truth will come out’’.

If that happens, via a ventilation, via Warner’s book, then Australian cricket better brace itself for a tropical tornado.

For all the outcry over the leadership ban, the simple call on whether Warner names and shames those who knew about the use of sandpaper in the Cape Town Test will have far more significance on the rest of his life.

David Warner was out early on day one of the second Test. Picture: Matt King/Getty Images

He can say nothing, retire to the commentary box and try and raise a plastic smile when he meets his old mates at the pitch reports.

Or he can name names – if, indeed, there were other names involved – which would make players who have denied any knowledge of the use of sandpaper look bad. The wounds would be deep and long-lasting.

Signing to do a book is a serious commitment. Top players often get between $600,000 and $900,000 but for that money are expected to sing for their supper.

The publishers are not interested in airbrushed versions of the truth.

The book market is tough and has gotten even tougher since Steve Waugh (171,000), Adam Gilchrist (130,000) and Ricky Ponting (110,000) cracked the elusive six figure sales mark.

Warner’s book is the ticking time bomb Australia has been fearing for four years.

One consolation if Warner does tell all is that it will finally allow cricket fans to make up their mind over whether Warner, Steve Smith and Cam Bancroft were treated fairly in being deemed the sole culprits and duly banned.

Warner during the third Test at Newlands in 2018. Picture: AFP PHOTO/GIANLUIGI GUERCIA

Michael Clarke spoke for many when said the cloud over the true facts had complicated the issue.

“The other thing that caused frustration here is I don’t believe all the information is out there,’’ Clarke said on Sky Sports Radio’s Big Sports Breakfast.

“I think there’s still so many question marks around what happened, what was said, how did Bancroft get involved? Was it happening before that Test match? So many questions. We need to be really careful. I don’t think we’ve been given 100 per cent all the information. I find it hard to separate.’’

Cricket Australia, yet again, has shown itself to be in dire need of strong leadership.

The simple fact that a sensitive issue which could have been put to bed months ago has surged to prominence in the middle of the Test summer is proof of CA’s inability to look tough issues in the eye and stare them down.

Warner and Cricket Australia were strongly against the hearing on Warner’s leadership ban being held in public which would have been demeaning and unnecessary.

But it may have solved one problem. Warner might have simply been asked “what on earth happened?’’ and we might have at last had a chance to put this entire sordid affair in its true perspective.

Paine sexting, Langer sacking, Warner saga: CA’s latest black eye

- Mark Waugh

Cricket Australia needs to understand one very important thing: they’re the decision-makers of the game, not anybody else.

Going to an independent committee to deal with the review of David Warner’s leadership ban is difficult to fathom and it has resulted in a major black eye for the sport on the eve of a Test match.

Why let someone else come in and rehash all this stuff from five years ago in Cape Town?

I just don’t understand why they can’t make a decision.

What is the point of having a board and appointing all that expertise to run the game if they can’t make a decision like this?

Back in 2018 after the Sandpapergate incident, it took Cricket Australia’s board a matter of days to give a direction on what it felt the punishments for Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft should be.

Surely then, the Cricket Australia board can make a call on whether the lifetime ban handed to Warner should be amended or revoked.

David Warner will no longer contest his leadership ban. Picture: AAP Images

That is as simple as it should be.

Cricket Australia has a habit of making simple things complicated.

If they thought Tim Paine should stand down as captain, tell him yourself rather than hiring a PR consultant.

If you think Justin Langer should go as coach, don’t insult him by offering a six-month extension.

If you think Steve Smith should play the Big Bash, who cares what the other clubs think and get him in if it’s the right thing for the competition.

The David Warner issue has been allowed to just drag on through a World Cup and now a Test series.

It’s a distraction no one really wants or needs.

Just make the decision and move on.

There’s a lot of smart people on the Cricket Australia board. They need to stand up and not let some independent committee take over. It’s just stupid.

If I was Australian coach Andrew McDonald or the other players preparing for a Test I’d be asking, any chance our bosses at Cricket Australia can get onside?

Surely David Warner has shown he’s rehabilitated.

David Warner is not allowed to captain any Australian side. Picture: Getty Images

He’s done everything right on the field. It makes no sense to put him or the game in a position where they’re being asked to rake back over the murky details from something that happened five years ago and that everyone is sick of.

Players and fans.

Personally, I think Warner should be allowed to captain a BBL team.

Maybe not Australia because he’s 36 and realistically he’s not a long-term option.

But he should be fine to captain the BBL and that’s the decision I would have made.

Back when all this started in February, Warner didn’t even have a Big Bash contract and Aaron Finch was Australian white ball captain.

It wasn’t about necessarily captaining again, it was about the principle of having a lifetime ban overturned when he has served his time and other players have been forgiven.

Warner obviously wants that wiped from his record and to have a clean slate.

But I understand why he wasn’t willing to go through all this drama again.

And why would Cricket Australia want that?

It was all avoidable. Just make a decision. Yourself.