Adelaide December 8, 2022: Former Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy says David Warner has “saved cricket” with his strongly-worded statement withdrawing his application to have his lifetime leadership ban overturned.
In an extraordinary Instagram post, Warner condemned the independent panel which was set to decide his appeal, taking aim at counsel assisting the panel for “offensive and unhelpful comments.”
“Regrettably, the review panel acted contrary to the submissions of Cricket Australia and my lawyer and appeared to adopt virtually entirely the position of counsel assisting,” Warner wrote.
“In effect, counsel assisting, and, it appears, to some extent the review panel, want to conduct a public trial of me and what occurred during the third Test at Newlands. They want to conduct a public spectacle to, in the panel’s words, have a ‘cleansing’. I am not prepared for my family to be the washing machine for cricket’s dirty laundry.”
Speaking on SEN radio on Thursday morning, Healy demanded a response from the independent panel.
“It’s a good quote. Warner put a lot of time into that. He’s had this decision for about a week. He’s prepared this 800 word document very well,” Healy said.
“Now I would like to see a similar style response by the independent panel.
“Cricket should be stepping in hard on that panel today,” he added.
“I don’t know where this has come from and why it’s happened, and I want a response from the independent panel today as to why this has all fallen apart.”
Healy called Warner’s lifetime leadership ban “unfortunate” and said there was no reason for the panel to conduct public hearings.
“He has saved cricket here,” he said.
“That panel were going to air cricket’s problems. Why would they do that? Every other aspect of their negotiations, with the Australian Cricketers Association for example, are endeavouring to stay behind closed doors.
“Get the job done, no matter what it takes, behind closed doors.
“I agree with David Warner that it doesn’t need to be in public.”
The 119-Test veteran, who was named as the wicketkeeper in the Australian Team of the Century, was dumfounded that the panel wanted public hearings, despite both Warner and Cricket Australia preferring to have the matter settled privately.
Cricket Australia announced in November it would change its Code of Conduct to allow Warner to appeal his leadership ban.
Healy also said he was “surprised” the Sydney Thunder didn’t appoint the opening batter as captain of the BBL side, as a way of bringing the matter to a head.
“He spoke a lot of sense,” he said.
“He had the support of Cricket Australia, they’d already gone through the effort of changing a clause to say this can be looked at and possibly approved, that we can overturn the decision that was made whilst the boys were in South Africa.
“The independent panel have decided the whole trial needs to be public. It seemed to be a trial of Warner’s crime again. The smallish crime of attempting to scratch a cricket ball, (but) it was supposed to be about the punishment, and they wanted to go through everything again, in public.
