Australian opening batsman David Warner has revealed that he believes there is another reason behind why he has a leadership ban in the national team set up.
Warner was slapped with a permanent leadership ban from all roles in Australian cricket in the fall out from the Cape Town 2018 ball tampering scandal.
The incident also saw Warner suspended from playing for 12 months, while Steve Smith was stripped of the Australian national team captaincy and suspended as well. Cameron Bancroft, who was the offender of the tampering, was also suspended from playing.
But speaking to News Corp at the Kayo Sports launch of the summer of cricket, Warner said another event - him driving for better pay to players during the tense MOU and player bargaining negotiations leading up to Cape Town aided in the board's decision to suspend him for life from any leadership positions.
โUnfortunately a lot of the events before 2018 were with the board โ the MOU stuff and all that,โ Warner said.
โ โฆ Things got over and above in terms of more than just Cape Town. There was more to it.
โI think that's where my decision โ the penalty that was handed down โ was more of stuff that was happening before that.
The opening batsman's name has been floated as a potential to take over from Aaron Finch, who is retiring as captain of the ODI team.
While Warner expects Test captain Pat Cummins to be handed the captaincy, Cummins has made it clear he won't be able to play every game across all three formats and wants a suitable vice-captain to share the workload if he takes the role.
Warner and Smith have both been floated for the job, however, Warner said he knew what he brings to the team regardless of what letters might be next to his name.
โObviously Pat has the Test captaincy, and he will be offered the job if he wants to take it and rightfully so,โ he said.
โ โฆ I think I have a lot of leadership qualities. And I know what I bring to the table as a leader. And I've still got that position anyway amongst the group.
โWe all know each other so well, we all have a great knowledge of the game. So for us it's about how do we use all that knowledge together and win games.
โ โฆ For me, it's about overturning that ban first before we think about captaincy.โ
