David Warner’s manager accuses ‘two executives’ of tampering go-ahead: ‘They were told to do it’

David Warner’s manager James Erskine has nudged the sandpaper scandal closer to being blown wide open, claiming players were told to tamper with the ball in Test cricket.

Warner on Wednesday night put a line through his bid to have his lifetime captaincy ban lifted, with wife Candice holding back tears when she spoke of the five-year saga’s impact on the couple and their three daughters.

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The Australian opener took aim at the independent review panel for being “determined to conduct a public lynching” that he said threatened to make his family “the washing machine for cricket’s dirty laundry”.

Now Erskine has shared his view that Warner has long been hung out to dry by others remaining silent. He claims the ball-tampering saga stemmed from losing to South Africa in Hobart in 2016.

“When the truth comes out, everyone’s going to turn around and say ‘well, why was David Warner picked upon?’” he told SEN.

“The truth will come out. Let me tell you. Someone will... there’s lots of people. There’s two cricketers who put their hands up and said ‘why don’t we all just tell the truth? They can’t fire all of us’. That’s what happened.

“Two senior executives were in the changing rooms in Hobart and basically were berating the team for losing to South Africa.

“Warner said we’ve got to reverse-swing the ball, and the only way we can reverse-swing the ball is basically by tampering with it. So they were told to do it.”

Erskine said Warner has protected unnamed teammates on his advice “because at the end of the day no one wanted to hear any more of it and he’s got on playing cricket”.

Hours earlier, Candice declared “enough is enough” and echoed the sentiment of Warner’s social media statements about prioritising his family and teammates over having his captaincy ban overturned.

The mother-of-three has been at the centre of the story after she was targeted by South African fans at the ill-fated Cape Town Test that led to Warner’s sandpaper ban.

“My daughters proudly wear T-shirts with their dad’s name on the back. The fact that my daughters have to cop abuse because of incidents that have happened in the past is not fair,” Candice told Triple M on Thursday.

“It’s still raw, we go to cricket so often watching David play and there’s always people yelling things out at the crowd.

“Our family’s already suffered and endured so much pain. Why do it now? What’s it going to achieve?

“We’ve lived with this pain, through this pain since 2018. And it gets to a point where enough is enough. Dave’s statement was very powerful and it had to be ... we’ve been through hell.”

Both Warner and Cricket Australia believed it fell in line with Code of Conduct changes made by the governing body last month to allow for a review of the long-standing sanctions.

But Warner has claimed the review panel, made up of three independent Code of Conduct commissioners, had other ideas.

Included in that were believed to be the ability for accredited media to attend the hearing, as well as going back over the events of March 2018.

Warner, with the support of CA, protested that process on the second day of last week’s Perth Test in a desperate bid to keep any appeal in-house.

However, as an independent panel the group was able to set their own parameters and method around the process.

Candice took aim at the “outrageous” demand that the hearing would be heard publicly with other players and coaches interviewed.

“In whose best interests is it for this to become public?” Candice said.

“Is it for David, for the team or for the panel’s best interests? The fact they used words like cleansing to me is a joke.

“That’s not what he wanted and I don’t think it’s what Cricket Australia wanted either. But the panel was very adamant that they wanted it public.”

Warner has previously flagged he may be in his final 12 months as a Test cricketer.

But the captaincy ban notably applies to the Big Bash, which could conceivably benefit from his experience and star power for seasons to come.

“David has had enough, the team has had enough and it’s just time to move on now and just to get on with playing cricket,” Candice said.

“We’ve all heard too much for too long.”

Candice denied that Warner has been “campaigning to be captain”.

“He is getting on in age so there was never any expectation that he was going to captain,” she said.

“But if there was an opportunity he would have loved to have taken it.”

The latest twist arrived just hours after it was announced Steve Smith would captain the Test side for the second time since his leadership ban was overturned.

- with AAP