In defence of David Warner, the man who retained a silent dignity

Following Smith and Bancroft ‘tell alls’, Warner is now being urged to ‘tell his side of the story’. He should stay silent.

David Warner is the only one of the banned players not to open up about the details of the Cape Town scandal. Picture: Phil Hillyard

David Warner is not a figure who readily elicits sympathy. He is regarded as too brash and too rich, as an unappetising mix of the privileged and the declasse. And he has, by his own admission, cheated at cricket.

Yet he may deserve more credit than many have been prepared to grudge him. Now alone among the Cape Town co-conspirators has he served his long penance quietly, tight with his family, mucking in at his club, and for what happened nine months ago blaming nobody but himself, publicly at least.

Declining to join Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft on this week’s instalment of Rehabilitation Idol, Warner has compelled nobody to arbitrate on the ethics of advertising one’s good works or to parse any wacky word salads. He has solicited no soft-ball questions, sought no pity, refrained from invitations to self-forgiveness, and exchanged no matey pleasantries with interlocutors (“Good on ya mate, I know all of Australia wish you all the best”; “Thanks Gilly, good on ya mate”).

But somehow it is Warner who remains beyond the pale. So much for that cultural review, with its complex shades of individual and institutional responsibility — far easier to fall back on the well-worn stereotype of the worm in the apple.

Warner faces strong urgings now — not at all self-interested from the media — to tell “his side of the story”. Yet why? For it is hard to see what Smith and Bancroft have gained by their public positionings. They divulged no new information, revealed no hitherto unsuspected dimensions to the story, and atoned for events not one iota.

Instead Smith returned to a familiar guise as billboard, allowing Vodafone to project its logo on his remorse, doubtless heartfelt but no worthier for corporate backing.

In his interview with Adam Gilchrist, he referred to the Hobart Test of 2016 as a moment the team started to “go off track”, yet could find nothing to fault in its “cultures and stuff” at the crucial moment.

Bancroft, apparently in circumstances so reduced that he can no longer afford sleeves, muddied things somewhat, amid tangling himself in abstractions and referring to himself in the third person.

Yes, as has been widely noted, Bancroft publicly tipped Warner in as the initiator of the illegal ball tampering; but it was not Warner to whom he felt answerable. Had he not fallen in with the plan, he told Adam Gilchrist, he would have “felt like I’d let the team down, like I’d hurt our chances to win the game of cricket”.

That invited further questions, which Gilchrist rather sidestepped in preference to allowing Bancroft to talk about his feelings — these days, of course, emotion trumps content every time.

Bancroft has enjoyed much public sympathy and private support since Cape Town. It’s become debatable whether he has deserved it. On the face of things, he seems to have been slow to understand the magnitude of his actions beyond their impact on him.

Back in March, Bancroft commented that “the thing that breaks my heart the most is the fact I’ve just given up my spot in the team to somebody else for free” — not exactly the profoundest thought on the matter.

Now he has arrived at positions that do not readily reconcile. Of the plan, for example, he told Gilchrist that he went along because he “didn’t know any better”. Yet somehow he also knew he was in trouble the instant he was caught.

In the context of the calamitous press conference at the end of the day’s play in Cape Town, Bancroft spoke of being “actually proud” that he and Smith “wanted to be accountable and I guess, really honest about our actions”. He discerned no contradiction between this and proceeding to mislead the media about the use of sandpaper.

Bancroft was not asked about, nor did he volunteer, any feeling he may have about the impact of his action on cricket’s reputation and health. I do not doubt that he nurses deep regrets. But so he should, and not merely for his own sake.

So who would have thought it? In all the climate of self-exoneration, Warner has been the perpetrator closest to retaining his dignity. Going back to March, in fact, Australia’s former vice-captain seemed the most sincere in his professions of contrition, and his words then stand up strikingly well in hindsight.

To date, in fact, Warner remains the only member of the trio to have offered an apology to Cricket Australia (“I apologise for my actions and the effect it has had on our game under your care and control”) and South Africa (“a fine cricketing nation” that “deserves better from its guests and deserves better from me”).

The question of whether Warner represents his country again remains open, and frankly should be left until it is a possibility. Nine months ago, Australian cricket changed beyond recognition in minutes; imagine how much it can change in three more months. But by keeping his own counsel, Warner has shown a degree of maturity and restraint for which he has not previously been noted.