Davy’s recall no sure thing

Fall: Bowling: Overs: DAVID Warner has been trapped by his future and his past.

The closer the return of Australia’s ball-tampering trio, the more obvious the massive challenges ahead.

Australia has lost its past four Ashes campaigns in England with generally happy teams. So how will it fare next year as it tries to put Humpty Dumpty back together after the ball-tampering scandal?

The team will spend almost four months in England next year for the World Cup and Ashes series. And the bare minimum requirement for success during these marathon campaigns is that the team is happy and united in its support of each other.

Anything less spells doom. If ball-tampering tensions are not resolved, you might as well not bother touring.

Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft have bared parts of their soul during the past week and came out of their interviews reasonably well. Warner didn’t.

Smith, in his general press conference, and Bancroft, in his chat with Adam Gilchrist on Fox Cricket, could not have been more categorical — using sandpaper on the ball was not their idea.

It’s gone from being a decision made by the leadership group, as initially explained by Smith, to Warner’s alone.

Both Smith and Bancroft now curse themselves for not being stronger — Smith for not overruling it and Bancroft for agreeing to do it. But in distancing themselves from Warner, they fire up debate over how things will fare when — if — the band gets back together.

Cricket Australia is so worried, it will counsel the dressingroom before deciding on a course of action and whether to recall Warner. It is a better than 50-50 chance, but it’s not over the line yet.

Warner is the wildcard. His comeback interview has the potential to be the most explosive of the lot.

What made him do it? Did he do it before? Who else knew? Does he feel abandoned? How does he feel about carrying the can for an action that was designed to help bowlers who immediately claimed they knew nothing about it?

Warner is cornered between his sins and his salvation. If he named names of others he thought might have known — if there were others — the dressingroom would simply explode.

Relations between Warner and several members of the bowling attack have reportedly remained strained since the ball-tampering affair.

Will they all just collectively agree to suck it up? Will tension linger?

In a sense Australia has moved on, but the dark shadow still lingers.

The full facts are not known. Friendships remain broken. Wounds are still bleeding.

And the most chastening fact of all is that they may never properly heal.