Cricket Australia have been criticised for the David Warner captaincy saga, with one Test great thanking the divisive batsman for 'saving cricket' with his latest move.
In a lengthy social media post on Wednesday night, the 36-year-old announced he would be withdrawing his appeal to have his captaincy ban overturned, ending a lengthy dilemma for the national side.
Warner was initially banned from holding an official leadership role for Australia for life, following his involvement in the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa back in 2018.
The left-hander cited the impact on his family, as well as the panel's offensive comments about his character, for withdrawing his appeal.
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Warner will now play out the rest of his international career solely as a batsman and won't hold a formal leadership role within the Test, ODI or T20 outfit.
The opener will now also miss out on the chance to captain the Sydney Thunder, with the Big Bash franchise giving the nod to rising star Jason Sangha heading into BBL|12.
Test great Ian Healy sided with Warner and doesn't believe the appeal hearing needed to be aired out in public.
“One of the best things Warner could do," he said on SENQ Breakfast.
"In an 800-word withdrawal, he spoke a lot of sense. They had already gone through the effort of changing the clause in the constitution somewhere that can say it can be looked at and possibly approved.
"The independent panel have decided that this needs to be public and the whole trial needs to be public – it seemed to be a trial of Warner’s crime again.
"The trial was supposed to be about the punishment, but they wanted to go through everything all again in public.
“He’s prepared this 800-word document quite well – very well actually – and now I would like to see a similar style response by the independent panel.
“He has saved cricket here...that panel was going to air cricket’s problems. Why would they do that, when every other aspect of their negotiations with the Australian Cricketers’ Association, for example, are endeavouring to stay behind closed doors very well.
“Don’t air those negotiations, get the job done, no matter what it takes, behind closed doors. Very much like the Rugby League Players’ Association and the Commission and the NRL and the clubs - they’re circling without us knowing exactly what’s going on.
“I agree with David Warner that it doesn’t need to be in public, unless I get convinced by their response today...I thank him for saving cricket.”
Warner's decision to withdraw his appeal comes as Steve Smith takes over the Test side for the second match against West Indies, with the superstar batsman only serving a temporary leadership ban for his involvement in the ball-tampering scandal.
Speaking on Big Sports Breakfast, former Test and ODI skipper Michael Clarke also sided with Warner, who understood the frustration on Warner's part.
“You can tell he’s disappointed and frustrated...I think the other thing that probably hurts a little bit more is the fact Steve Smith is going to captain this Test match," Clarke said.
“I can understand Davey’s disappointment. In regards to where Davey is with his age, he’s unfortunately missed out on the captaincy opportunity in my opinion.
“I don’t think that’s the concern, it’s the fact it’s taken so long to process this or to get to where it’s at.
“I see it as very inconsistent. I find it very hard to believe it’s okay for one but not okay for the other to have a leadership role.
“If CA decided all the guys involved in what went down in South Africa, none of them were going to play a leadership role, I think that’s a fair call. If it’s okay for Smithy, it’s got to be ok for Bancroft and it’s got to be okay for Warner.
“I don’t know if it’s fair to make David Warner the complete scapegoat and say everyone else can go back to normal.
“There’s so much around how that was handled that was just not the right way...starting from doing the crime - let’s start there. How does it go away?
“The fact that there’s bits and pieces of what went down is out there to protect so many people is the problem with all of this. If they want to make it public, the whole lot should be made public from start to finish. If it keeps coming up how do you move on? How does cricket move on?
“Unfortunately for this Australian team, a lot of players that were involved then are involved now. So really it seems that until they retire this is just going to keep coming up because there’s so many questions around what went down.”
Following the decision from Warner, CA released a statement on Thursday morning addressing the issue and supporting the opener in his stance.
“We are disappointed with this outcome as our intention was to give David the opportunity to demonstrate why his lifetime leadership ban should be varied at an independent hearing and we amended our Code of Conduct accordingly,” the statement said.
“We supported David’s wish for these discussions to be heard behind closed doors and respect his decision to withdraw his application.
“David is a very senior and highly regarded member of the Australian team who has been a great ambassador for the game as a whole since his return from a year-long ban.”
Veteran cricket commentator and expert Gerard Whately also weighed in on the Warner captaincy saga, admitting he felt sympathy for the big-hitting opener and believes CA have treated him unfairly.
“My sympathies are absolutely with Warner in the way this has played out, and that’s probably the first time I’ve felt this way across the five years,” he said on SEN Mornings.
“The idea that he raised of a cleansing, a public cleaning, that’s not the appeals process that he was encouraged to become a part of… I can’t see Warner as captain of Australia again, but I absolutely think he does have the right to go through a process to captain the Thunder in the BBL, where most would acknowledge he is a drawcard for a competition that desperately needs it.
“CA has taken nine months to put together the process for him to be able to do that...they’ve come up with an independent panel, who it would appear from reading Warner’s statement, have decided that what they would like is a public hearing on what transpired with sandpaper. I think Warner is right to depict that as it would degenerate into a lynch mob.
“It’s worth remembering that CA at the time had a really narrow investigation, a really narrow outcome and really narrow penalties, and they seemed to have such a distaste to discuss it publicly that the last time I asked the chief executive whether he had even read the report of the time, he wouldn’t answer that question.
“CA wants none of this public and all of a sudden, they’ve got their independent panel who would like to run a total public process for a cleansing.
“That’s wretchedly unfair for Warner.”
Warner will line up for the Aussies in the day-night Test match in Adelaide, beginning on Thursday afternoon.