The saga involving David Warner has taken an ugly turn, with the star's manager slamming Cricket Australia for their approach to his recent appeal.
The 36-year-old had recently lodged an appeal to have his lifetime captaincy ban overturned, with the recent retirement of Aaron Finch potentially opening the door for him to take over the T20 side.
But on Wednesday night, Warner released a lengthy social media statement, revealing he had withdrawn his appeal and would not subject his family to any further public scrutiny.
It has prompted the likes of Ian Healy to come forward and applaud Warner for his stance, with the opener set to line up in Thursday afternoon's second Test against West Indies.
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But just hours before the first ball in Adelaide, Warner's manager James Erskine took to SEN Radio to blast CA for their treatment of the modern-day Aussie great.
“I think he’s fed up with the process, the trauma [from] that the original decision in South Africa, to his family and Candice...she lost a baby because of it,” he said.
“I think it’s odd, I don’t quite understand the process myself. Of course, they (Cricket Australia) want this open court on the appeal. When you get banned for life with no appeal, I don’t think that can be legal, you can murder 25 people and get an appeal, and go have a second trial.
“[Malcolm] Turnbull came out and said this is a disgrace and whatever - I think he regrets those comments now. Cricket Australia had the whole process, the Roy report was done in four days.
"You’d have to be a blind black labrador, there was far more than three people involved in this thing, they all got a canning and David Warner was completely villainized.
“He has shut up, he protected Cricket Australia, he protected his fellow players on my advice, because at the end of the day no one wanted to hear any more of it and he’s got on playing cricket.
“Why Cricket Australia couldn’t have done a very sensible thing and said listen, it’s not legal that someone doesn’t have a right of appeal.
“It’s just absurd, why should he have to go through that, he has done everything he possibly could for Cricket Australia and for his team, and now he’s being treated like this.
"This is injustice at its greatest level.”
Warner was handed a lifetime leadership ban for his involvement in the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa, while Steve Smith was only handed a temporary suspension and will now lead the side in Adelaide due to Pat Cummins' absence.
The big-hitting opener's decision to withdraw his appeal also took him out of the running to captain the Sydney Thunder in this season's Big Bash, with rising star Jason Sangha getting the nod.
Erskine believes the three men involved in the ball-tampering - Warner, Smith and Cameron Bancroft - were 'victimised' back in 2018 and accused CA of lying about the incident.
"Three people have been completely victimised above everybody else and it's not fair," he said.
"When the truth comes out, everyone is going to turn around and say - why was David Warner picked on?
"The truth will come out. There's lots of people - there were two cricketers at the time who put their hand up and said 'why don't we just all tell the truth? They can't fire all of us'.
"Two senior executives were in the changing room in Hobart [in late 2016] and basically were berating the team for losing against South Africa and Warner said, 'we've got to reverse swing the ball, and the only way to reverse swing the ball is basically by tampering with it'...so they were told to do it."