David Warner's manager has dropped a bombshell by claiming that players were "told" to tamper with the ball by unnamed officials some 16 months prior to the 2018 sandpaper scandal that rocked Australian cricket.
Warner was vice-captain to Steve Smith when Cameron Bancroft was caught ball-tampering with sandpaper during South Africa's second innings in the famous incident in 2018. Both Smith and Warner stepped down from their senior leadership roles and were charged with bringing the game into disrepute.
The Cricket Australia (CA) board found Warner responsible "for the development of the plan". However, the Australian's manager - James Erskine - claimed that the idea was first talked about 16 months before the scandal.
Warner's manager Erskine claimed that players had been given permission to tamper with the ball after a 2016 hammering against South Africa in Hobart.
"Two senior executives were in the changing room in Hobart and basically were berating the team for losing against South Africa," Erskine said during an interview with Australian radio station SEN.
"Warner said 'we've got to reverse-swing the ball. And the only way we can reverse-swing the ball is by tampering with it'. And so they were told to do it."
Erskine added that Warner was 'villainised' for the ball-tampering scandal and that more people were involved in the cheating plan. However, the cricket star hasn't spoken out about it.
He added: "There was far more than three people involved in this thing, they all got a caning and David Warner was completely villainised.
"He has shut up, he protected Cricket Australia, he protected his fellow players on my advice, because at the end of the day no one wanted to hear any more of it and he's got on playing cricket. This is injustice at its greatest level."
Mirror Sport has contacted Cricket Australia for comment.
This comes after Warner withdrew his appeal to have his life-time captaincy ban lifted. With a captaincy position set to become available, the 36-year-old submitted a bid in the hope to captain Australia once again.
After being told that the independent review panel would include a cross-examination of the 2018 ball-tampering scandal he has withdrawn his appeal - claiming that the panel wanted to 'conduct a public trial' on him.
Warner's appeal came after Cricket Australia (CA) altered their code of conduct, allowing him to appeal the ban.
