Cricket Australia (CA) imposed a lifelong leadership ban as a punishment on David Warner after the 2018 ball-tampering saga, also known as 'Sandpapergate', in South Africa. Along with Warner, former captain Steve Smith was stripped of captaincy and banned from leading the country for two years while Cameron Bancroft was handed a nine-month suspension. Four years later, Warner still finds himself grappling to earn the respect of his country's cricket board.
Warner recently announced that he has given up on hopes of becoming the Australian captain again as the review panel wanted him and his family to go through 'public lynching'. While several current and former Australian cricketers have come in Warner's support, former Aussie captain Ian Chappell is amongst the few people who don't want the swashbuckling opening batter to resume a leadership role as he is 'too old'.
"If Cricket Australia were to lift the ban on Warner, what's that going to do? I mean, you're not going to appoint Warner captain of any Australian team, are you? He's too old," Chappell was quoted as saying by Channel Nine's Wide World of Sports.
"And he's not going to be given the role because the captain has got to be young enough to be able to lead by example, and those days are gone for David." The former Australia skipper feels Warner wanted his captaincy ban to be lifted as he wanted to lead his BBL side Sydney Thunder.
"I think David probably wanted the leadership for his BBL team (the Sydney Thunder) so that he could help them.
"He (Warner) would have been a very good leader for them, he thinks very aggressively about the game. Whatever leadership position he had, he would be good at it," Chappell said.
Chappell also lashed out at hit out at CA and accused the country's cricket board of just 'protecting their own backside' and not doing 'anything in the interest of the players or the player'.
"They (CA) look after themselves, they don't look after the player. This (Warner saga) is just another example of Cricket Australia not being very good, it has been handled badly," he said.
"My point is that Cricket Australia will never do anything in the interest of the players or the player; they will only ever do anything to protect their own backside."
