Warner’s manager claims Australia were ‘told’ to tamper with ball after Hobart loss in 2016-17
“Two senior executives were in the dressing room in Hobart essentially berating the team for losing to South Africa,” Erskine told SEN radio. “And Warner said we have to swing the ball in reverse, and the only way we can swing the ball in reverse is to mess with it. So they were told to do it.”
Erskine did not specify who exactly “told” them to tamper with the ball, nor did he name the executives present after the loss.
Discussing the punishments handed out after Newlands, Erskine said that Warner had been treated much harsher than others, and that Cricket Australia should have lifted the leadership ban internally rather than through a review panel that decided they wanted to re-examine the whole incident. .
“You’d have to be a blind black Labrador Retriever not to realize that there were way more than three people involved in this thing. They all got canned and David Warner was completely villainous,” he said. “He kept his mouth shut, he protected Cricket Australia, he protected his fellow players on my advice, because at the end of the day no one wanted to hear about it, and he continues to play cricket.
“Why Cricket Australia couldn’t have done something very sensible and said ‘Listen, it’s not legal for someone to have no right of appeal’. It’s just absurd, why should he have to go through that? He’s done everything he possibly could can do for Cricket Australia and for his team, and now he is being treated like this… this is injustice at the highest level.
