Melbourne: The directors at Cricket Australia have dropped hints about rewriting the Code of Ethics of the organisation, a process which could begin from the board meeting in Hobart on Friday, and could see the lifetime leadership ban on opener David Warner being lifted.
Warner has been under a leadership ban since the 2018 Cape Town ball-tampering scandal apart from punishments being given to Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft.
The 35-year-old, who is close to 100 T20Is as well as completed a century of Test match appearances apart from captaining Sunrisers Hyderabad to the 2016 IPL title win, has been mentioned as a candidate for Australia’s vacant ODI captaincy post since the retirement of Aaron Finch. But as per the current rules, he cannot take up the vacant job.
“The view within Cricket Australia is that David is doing particularly well on the field and making a great contribution off the field. The first step in terms of David’s leadership ban is to review the code and see if those sanctions are able to be reviewed, and the appropriate revisions to that code that would need to be made,” chairman Lachlan Henderson was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au.
Henderson added that the code could be rewritten if deemed necessary, with that to happen before a call on the one-day captaincy is made. “Our intention is to review the code as quick as is practical. It’s not in anyone’s interest for us to delay that. It would be in time for any future leadership conversations in relation to David.”
But CA is also wary of any change made to the code in consultation with ethics commissioner Simon Longstaff could have implications on matters beyond Warner. CEO Nick Hockley feels players had a right to show they had changed since the point of being handed a lifetime ban.
“In very simple terms, we are looking at sanctions to be reviewed for good behaviour and growth after a period of time. Pending tomorrow’s discussion, there would then need to be a revision of the code and that would need to be approved by the board.”
–IANS