The Australian opener, David Warner, decided not to challenge Cricket Australia’s decision to impose a lifetime ban from leadership roles on him, saying that he did not want to put his family and his teammates through “further trauma and disruption.”
Warner, who was removed of his captaincy duties when he was Australia’s vice captain in the wake of the ball-tampering incident in the Cape Town Test in 2018, made the announcement on Tuesday that he would be withdrawing his request to have the suspension lifted. To support his position as a corrected cricketer, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the way the investigation was being handled.
Some things are more important than cricket….. https://t.co/tSy1J8dvg9
— David Warner (@davidwarner31) December 7, 2022
“In his submissions, Counselling Assisting made offensive comments about me that absolutely no substantive purpose under the Code of Conduct,” Warner wrote. “Regrettably, the Review Panel acted contrary to the submissions of Cricket Australia and my lawyer and appeared to adopt virtually the entire position of Counsel Assisting.
“In effect, Counsel Assisting, and, it appears, to some extent the Review Panel, want to conduct a public trial of me and what occurred during the Third Test at Newlands,” Warner wrote. “They want to conduct a public spectacle to, in the Panel’s words, have a “cleansing”. I am not prepared for my family to be the washing machine for cricket’s dirty laundry.
“Counsel Assisting the Review Panel appeared to be determined to revisit the events of March 2018 and the Review Panel appears determined to expose me and my family to further humiliation and harm by conducting a media circus.
“Regrettably, I have no practical alternative at this point in time but to withdraw my application. I am not prepared to subject my family or my teammates to further trauma and disruption by accepting a departure from the way in which my application should be dealt with pursuant to the Code of Conduct.
“Some things are more important than cricket.”