SYDNEY, (Reuters) – Cricket Australia (CA)’s board requested an amendment to their integrity code be drawn up yesterday in another step towards David Warner’s lifetime ban from leadership positions being lifted.
The opening batsman was banned from the elite game for 12 months and from leadership positions for life by CA after they adjudged he played the leading role in the 2018 Newlands ball-tampering scandal.
There have been calls this year from players, including test skipper Pat Cummins, for the leadership ban to be dropped to allow Warner to be considered for the vacancy as Australia’s one-day international captain.
Any player who accepts a sanction under the current code, as Warner did, forgoes the right to a later review of the punishment but the CA board yesterday asked the body’s head of integrity to propose an amendment to it.
“The amendment would allow a person to request a penalty that they had accepted be reviewed after an appropriate period of time,” CA said in a statement.
“The onus would be on the applicant to prove they had undergone genuine reform relevant to the offence they were sanctioned for.
“Any review would not revisit the original sanction, other than suspension of a penalty in recognition of genuine reform.”
Should the amendment be adopted, CA said, the review of the penalty would be heard by an independent commission.
CA chairman Lachlan Henderson and chief executive Nick Hockley signalled the move after CA’s annual general meeting on Thursday.
Henderson said the review would be undertaken as quickly as possible to allow Warner to be considered in discussions about future leadership positions.
Warner, a former test vice-captain, has said he would regard the offer of a leadership role for his country as a “privilege”.
