David Warner calls on Cricket Australia to probe claims India A players tampered with ball in practice match

David Warner has called on Cricket Australia to probe the ball-tampering issue that threatened to boil over during Australia A’s clash with India A last week.

And Warner, who was banned for 12 months, has put the issue back on the agenda amid claims the governing body swept the issue under the carpet.

A discussion between umpire Shawn Craig and the Indian team on Saturday, where players were told “when you scratch it, we change the ball” did not lead to any ball tampering charge.

And a dissent warning for Indian wicket-keeper Ishan Kishan also amounted to no charges or retribution.

The matter was not followed up further by match officials and Cricket Australia later issued a statement saying the ball had been changed because of “deterioration”.

Now Warner, who was at the centre of Australia’s ball tampering scandal in South Africa in 2018 and banned for 12 months, is calling on them to investigate the “squashed” incident.

He believes the matter was put to bed so it didn’t distract from this summer’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy series.

“The ultimate decision is with CA, isn’t it?” Warner said at a press conference after his own leadership ban was lifted and he was named captain of the Sydney Thunder.

“But if the umpires deemed something happened, I am sure there will be a follow-up. I think the umpires or the match referee should be standing here answering questions.

“I think the match referee should be coming out and addressing his own staff which are the umpires.

“And if they’re sticking by the umpire’s decisions, you have to stand up for that. That’s obviously a statement CA have to release. I have not seen anything.”

Under Cricket Australia regulations, put in place after the Newlands scandal and not aligned with the Marylebone Cricket Club’s laws of the game, umpires can replace the ball if they feel it has deteriorated at an unusual rate but do not have grounds to claim it has been tampered with.

A CA spokersperson responded to Warner’s comments and said proper process had been followed.

“The correct process was followed for the replacement of the ball,” the statement read.

“The officials then determined on the information available no further action was required.”

Former Australian opener Ed Cowan believes the incident would have been looked into further if cricketing powerhouse India was not involved and said officials had done a “backflip”.

“Shawn Craig it feels has been hung out to dry here, badly, he has had no support from his employer,” he said.

“He has seen something on the field and in his best judgement tried to replicate that and then Cricket Australia have worked out they’ve got an issue.

“The issue is, similar to any other time India are aggrieved, they threaten to pull a tour, or they threaten to pull X, Y or Z and people retreat.

“So I’m in a bit of shock actually that an actual press release would come out and say, having heard the audio that an umpire thought the ball had been scratched and are well within their rights to change the ball, that it’s like ‘oh no, nothing more to see here, we are just going to keep moving on towards this Test series that hopefully can assist in fixing a whole lot of balance sheets.

“I guess my underlying issue here is, you can’t choose when integrity matters. Integrity matters the whole time. You can’t lean out when it’s India. I don’t like this at all.

“Part of me just thinks if this wasn’t India, there would be a totally different reaction. If that was Pakistan A or England A, or choose any other A team, or even a shield game for that matter, the reaction would be totally different and for me that is the wrong approach.

“Where do you stop bowing to the power of the BCCI if it’s not around integrity issues.”

In a flashpoint on India’s tour of Australia in 2008, a three-match ban handed by match referee Mike Proctor to spinner Harbhajan Singh was rescinded amid speculation could pull their team from the tour if it had stood.

A report from the Nine papers on Wednesday suggested Indian players — including Ishan who told the umpire ‘that is a very stupid decision’ — were not happy with the condition of the replacement ball.

Former international umpire Tony McQuillan said Craig ball tampering offences are difficult for on-field officials to prove.

“More power to Shawn for not ignoring their actions. But it is important that officials’ actions and language do not further provoke or inflame. It is fine being official but you don’t want to be officious,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“I felt Shawn should have had the other umpire with him if it was official.

“Ball tampering accusations can be a nightmare for umpires because players obviously try to hide what they are doing. Unless you have television footage it becomes a matter of one man’s word against another.”

But former Australian wicket-keeper Ian Healy backed Cricket Australia’s handling of it.

“I thought Cricket Australia was clinical. The umpires were good, change the ball, if they are suspicious about them all, just change it,” he told SEN.

“The umpires were thinking ‘nup, that side of the ball has deteriorated unacceptably’, insinuating it’s been accelerated.

“Then India, they whinged about it ... but they didn’t then front the media to deny it, they just closed ranks and didn’t give themselves a chance to say what they thought was happening.”

The Thunder confirmed Warner would replace Chris Green as their captain for this Big Bash season, a week after his leadership ban was lifted.

“Quite clearly the last piece of that puzzle was that, but for me, now it’s about coming out and sharing my knowledge of the game,” he said.

“I think always forever, that was probably going to be on my CV as well. You don’t want to look back and go for a job interview and have ‘banned for life from a leadership perspective’ on your CV.

“I think two years ago, that was probably me done (with leadership). I thought I probably would revisit that, I didn’t even know if I was going to come back and play Big Bash. But I think deep down, in 2018, I learned a lot of things from then and one of those was giving back to the game.”