Warner ‘too old’ for captaincy role; no point lifting leadership ban: Ian Chappell

New Delhi: Former Australia captain Ian Chappell said he is not in favour of lifting the lifetime leadership ban imposed on left-handed opener David Warner, saying that he is now too old for the captaincy role of the national side.

“?If Cricket Australia were to lift the ban on Warner, what’s that going to do? I mean, you’re not going to appoint Warner captain of any Australian team, are you? He’s too old.”

“And he’s not going to be given the captaincy because the captain has got to be young enough to be able to lead by example, and those days are gone for David,” Chappell was quoted as saying by Wide World of Sports.

Last week, Warner had withdrawn his application for removing the lifetime leadership ban, saying that the independent review panel wanted to make it “a public lynching.”

Now, Chappell feels Warner wanted his captaincy ban to be lifted in order to captain Sydney Thunder in the upcoming Big Bash League (BBL).

“I think David probably wanted the leadership of his BBL team (the Sydney Thunder) so he could help them. He would have been a very good leader for them because he’s done it before, he’s done it well and he thinks very aggressively about the game of cricket. So, whatever leadership position he had he would be good at.”

Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft were accused of ball tampering in the sandpaper saga of 2018 in Cape Town, South Africa. But only Warner got a lifetime leadership ban, while Smith got a year ban and an additional 12 months ban in leadership positions, and Bancroft got a ban of nine months.

Chappell also slammed Cricket Australia (CA) for the way it handled the scenario around lifting Warner’s leadership ban, accusing the board of “not looking after players”.

“But he realised what Cricket Australia were trying to do – in other words, look after themselves, not him – and he just said, ‘No, I don’t want to know about that’.”

“He probably had other reasons, as well, but as far as I’m concerned that’s the main reason: they don’t look after the player. The thing about it is the impression it creates with the public.”

“The public has thought for a while now that ?Cricket Australia are not very good, and this is just another example of Cricket Australia not being very good…they’ve handled it badly all the way through.?”

“My point is that Cricket Australia will never do anything in the interest of the players or the player; they will only ever do anything to protect their own backside. That’s what they were going to do with Warner’s case. They’ve done it in every previous case, so I wasn’t surprised…that’s their whole reason for operating ?- to make sure that it doesn’t come back to haunt them.”