South Africa cricket officials pose with fans wearing Sonny Bill masks

Cricket South Africa officials openly taunt David Warner’s wife Candice by posing with fans wearing Sonny Bill Williams masks.

South African cricket officials Clive Eksteen (left) and Altaaf Kazi (second from left) pose with fans wearing Sonny Bill Williams masks, a slur against David Warner's wife Candice.

Cricket South Africa officials have openly taunted David Warner’s wife Candice by posing with fans wearing Sonny Bill Williams masks on the first day of the second Test.

The couple was terribly upset after play at the latest turn of events, which comes just days after another attack on the mother of two by a Proteas player.

Clive Eksteen, CSA’s head of commercial and marketing, and Altaaf Kazi, the organisation’s head of communications, were pictured smiling with their arms around each other as they stood next to three men in the masks.

It is a disgraceful new low for South African cricket, whose players and officials often complain about Australian cricketers breaching boundaries of acceptable behaviour.

The incident follows Quinton de Kock’s abuse of Candice to Warner during the first Test.

Warner exploded with rage when the South African player made the comments about his wife in the stairwell of the dressing rooms.

The ICC intervened and sanctioned both players, but the details of the abuse had been suppressed out of respect for Mrs Warner.

The Australian player admitted he was wrong and apologised for over-reacting while de Kock appealed against his minor sanction, claiming he was provoked.

Warner was upset with the attack on his wife and asked that the details of the slur not be reported to protect her.

Candice was devastated to think that her past had been used to mock her and her husband.

South African fans had prepared the masks to taunt Warner but officials had attempted to stop them being brought into the ground out of respect for Candice and their two children, who were at the ground.

Those efforts were undone by Eksteen and Kazi.

Candice and Williams had been caught in 2007 in a hotel “tryst” that was made public.

Warner has copped a backlash from fans for the way he reacted to the abuse of his wife but was the highest scorer in Australia’s first innings.

The batsman said this week he endured relentless attacks on his wife from the public but when it was brought up in the first Test he lost control.

David Warner is restrained by teammates as he confronts Quinton de Kock in a stairwell.

“I’ve been called everything under the sun out the field and that, quite frankly, doesn’t bother me,” Warner said between Tests about the de Kock attack on his wife.

“The other day I was probably out of line. I’ve seen the footage and I regret the way it played out but for me — it is how I am and I responded emotionally and regretted the way I played out. But I’ll always stick up for my family.

“I cop it left, right and centre, especially off the field from spectators. I am used to that and it doesn’t bother me. But in the proximity of my personal space and behind me, a comment that was vile and disgusting and about my wife and just in general about a lady was quite poor, I felt, and as I said my emotional response, you saw, was just something that I don’t believe should have been said. And as I said, I will always stick up for my family. ”