Stuart Broad on Aussie cheating scandal

Sobbing Warner facing up to his exile, but did he cheat during the Ashes?

THE abiding sense after David Warner became the latest cricketer to bare his emotions in front of the camera was perhaps not one the Australian authorities intended. This extraordinary scandal could get even messier.

Despite the inevitable mockery on social media, Warner’s tears as he apologised for his part in the Cape Town ball-tampering controversy came from a genuine place: at 31, his international career, he suspects, is over. That’s tough to swallow. Misbehaviour and regret are not mutually exclusive.

But there were two problems. First, the public were already suffering from emotion fatigue after Thursday’s press conferences by Steve Smith, Cameron Bancroft and Darren Lehmann.

Second, Warner was limited in what he could say by what he later referred to on Twitter as ‘a formal Cricket Australia process’. The upshot was a display heavy on remorse but light on detail. A week after he persuaded Bancroft to take sandpaper to the ball, questions outnumber answers. And, uncomfortably for Cricket Australia (CA), observers will fill in the gaps.

England fans, for instance, will have noted Warner’s failure to deny previous ball tampering.

South African captain Faf du Plessis aired his team’s suspicions about Australian skulduggery earlier in their four-match series. And although England players are under instructions from ECB director of cricket Andrew Strauss not to make public pronouncements on Australia’s discomfort, the mood in private is unequivocal: Warner, they feel, was up to no good during the Ashes.

Good sense is preventing them from airing their grievances. They were thoroughly outplayed by Australia during their 4-0 defeat, and do not want to play the role of whingeing Poms.

But if CA were confident that no further ball-tampering skeletons will emerge, they could at least have allowed Warner to protest his — and his team’s — innocence. He was unable to do so.

The extent of his often obnoxious behaviour on t he field meant his

culpa attracted less sympathy than Smith’s. Yet there is also an uneasy feeling t hat he is being disowned by the machine that created him.

Many in Australia welcomed his supposed transformation after marriage to Candice Falzon in 2015 — he gave up alcohol, and his nickname changed from ‘The Bull’ to ‘The Reverend’ — but there was silence when he reverted to type ahead of the Ashes, promising to work up ‘hatred’ for England.

Yet what did people expect? Last year, the board ditched references to the Spirit of Cricket from their strategy, preferring instead cliches that better reflected the machismo so often associated with the Australian game: ‘Be real, smash the boundaries, make every ball count, stronger together.’

In that respect, Warner was CA’s useful idiot, the attack dog who could be muzzled — and blamed — if his bark went beyond the pale.

Yes, Warner was responsible for his actions; yes, he has forfeited the respect of the cricket community. But to claim his behaviour was not tacitly endorsed by his superiors would be to give CA a free pass they do not deserve. Lehmann belatedly recognised this, resigning as coach because to stay on would have been to acknowledge a grim truth — that he had lost control of his team. Whether or not he knew what was going on in the Cape Town dressing-room, his decision at least conveyed integrity.

But what of those above him? Not for nothing is CA chief executive James Sutherland known as the great survivor. His response was pure corporate speak, a clarion call to the sponsors who are now distancing themselves from the team.

‘What’s happened over the last few days,’ he said, ‘has only strength- ened my resolve to ensure Australian cricket and the Australian cricket team gets back on track, and gets back to a place where it has not only the full respect but the pride of the Australian community.’

Some may wonder why Lehmann, Smith, Warner and Bancroft were not granted the same indulgence.

Australia have promised to change —– as if they have any choice. But it will not be easy.

And Warner has promised to say more ‘at the proper time’. If his testimony proves honest, cricket will be grateful.

The suits at Cricket Australia may feel more ambivalent.