Shunned Warner ‘goes rogue’

DAVID WARNER was said to have ‘gone rogue’ and been shunned by team-mates on another day of drama in the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa. Australian media outlets reported that Warner, the team’s vice-captain, had tried to shift the blame for Saturday’s events in Cape Town on to other members of the leadership group — fast bowlers Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood and spinner Nathan Lyon. While chastened colleagues awaited departure for Cape Town airport en route to Johannesburg, the venue for Friday’s fourth and final Test, Warner was reportedly ‘swilling champagne in the bar of the team hotel with non-cricket mates’. Several of his team-mates wanted him removed from the hotel amid fears of an ‘incident’ if he stayed put. Warner — along with captain Steve Smith and opening batsman Cameron Bancroft — will leave South Africa today. Warner also left the team’s WhatsApp group and teammates are said to be furious with their vice-captain’s behaviour, with some understood to have made it clear they never want to play with him again. One report described the situation in the Australian dressing room as ‘nuclear’. Warner has emerged as the mastermind behind the plan to get Bancroft to use sticky tape and granules of dirt to scratch the ball and increase the chances of reverse swing as Australia struggled to stay in touch during a game they went on to lose by 322 runs. But reports suggest he tried to play down his role in the affair, leading to a poisonous dressingroom rift from which he may never recover.