MELBOURNE: David Warner’s lifetime leadership ban may be lifted as soon as this Friday, as Cricket Australia’s (CA) board of directors is considering revising the organization’s code of ethics, reported Australian news agency.
Warner has been facing a captaincy ban since the 2018 ball-tempering controversy and on various occasions, he expressed his eagerness to get the suspension overturned.
The 35-year-old has now been considered a contender to lead Australia in the limited-overs format since Aaron Finch announced his retirement from one-day internationals and will consider his T20 future after the upcoming World Cup.
Under present CA rules, a player who accepts a sanction under the code of ethics forgoes his right to have the matter reviewed, which means the code has to be rewritten in order to lift Warner’s ban. The director will ponder over the matter on Friday at the board’s meeting in Hobart.
“The view within Cricket Australia is that David is doing particularly well on the field and making a great contribution off the field,” said CA Chairman Lachlan Henderson as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.com.
“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.” he told.
He added: “Our intention is to review the code as quick as is practical. It’s not in anyone’s interest for us to delay that,” Henderson said. “It would be in time for any future leadership conversations in relation to David.”
Meanwhile, CEO Nick Hockley expressed that players had a right to prove they had changed since the point of receiving 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.” he said.
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