A leadership ban spanning a lifetime is wrong, believes Steve Smith, who came out in firm support of his experienced teammate David Warner amidst the leadership row that continues to hog the limelight in Australian cricket.
Warner recently gave up on his request for a reversal of the lifetime captaincy ban hovering over his head since he was found proven involved in the 2018 Cape Town ball-tampering incident.
Even as his accomplice Smith served his leadership punishment of two years and has since been a stand-in skipper for Australia in Tests whenever Pat Cummins hasn’t been available for the top job, Warner continues to face the brunt of the Cricket Australia’s strict stance.
The board had initially stated they will be holding discussions with the player and open up doors for a reversal of the ban. But a change on that front, with the board asking Warner to undergo a public trial for the case, triggered a sad statement from the player, who pulled back on the application and said the whole fiasco has had a negative impact on him and his family.
“From my point of view, banning for life from leadership is just fundamentally wrong,”
Smith was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
“David served his time like I did. For us, we know he’s a leader around the group, and on and off the field he’s doing a tremendous job.”
The modern-day batting giant further empathised with his longstanding friend and his captaincy deputy at the time of the Cape Town incident as he also suffers a decline in performances at the Test level over the past year.
Warner made scores of 5, 48, 21 and 28 against a weak West Indies visiting side over the past two weeks. Since the beginning of 2022, the left-hander is averaging 23 over 17 innings with the bat, with only two scores of 50 and above to his name.
Smith, however, alluded to the dip in Warner’s output on the distraction that the captaincy controversy has been for the 36-year-old, backing him to come out firing come the next series against South Africa.
