Ian Healy weighs in on David Warner drama and makes stunning revelation

Ian Healy has weighed in on the explosive row surrounding Australian cricket after David Warner’s manager claimed that players were told to cheat.

James Erskine, who represents the opening batsman, alleged that players were told by officials to tamper with the ball during a dressing room berating in Hobart in 2016.

Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft made international headlines in 2018 when they were found to have tampered with the ball during a Test match against South Africa in Cape Town.

‘You’d have to be a blind black Labrador, there was far more than three people involved in this thing, they all got a canning and David Warner was completely villainized,’ Erskine told SEN.

‘The truth will come out, let me tell you.’

At no stage did Erskine state the officials allegedly involved were from Cricket Australia.

However, Healy has provided fresh insight into the claims made by Erskine and said he does not recall players being instructed to cheat when he was in the dressing room in Hobart that day.     

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His manager, James Erskine, claims that players were told to cheat during a Hobart test

‘I’m a blind Black Labrador because I don’t know of anyone else (who knew),’ he told SEN. ‘That would have to be explained in any inquiry for mine. 

‘I don’t know of any other incidents that James is talking about so David has kept that well in-house, but now James has opened David’s mouth.

‘That’s the bombshell that Cricket Australia didn’t want and this independent panel should have been behind closed doors sorting out.

‘I went into the dressing room that day. Mark Taylor and I went from our commentary box in Hobart to the dressing room to support the boys because they’d had a real failure against South Africa and that’s where five players were chopped.

‘We went in that day and it would’ve happened that day where they were spoken to by unnamed people and said ‘we don’t pay you to do anything but win’ and that was the attitude that came out, which wasn’t good.’

However, Healy says that he was in the dressing room that day and heard no such comments

Cricket Australia chief Nick Hockley said Erskine’s remarks were ‘unhelpful and unfounded’

Cricket Australia CEO Nick Hockley also broke his silence on the latest development, slamming Erskine for his ‘unhelpful and unfounded’ remarks.

‘I think they’re really unhelpful and unfounded comments,’ Hockley told SEN radio.

‘I think as an investigation was done at the time – but I think it’s been said repeatedly, if new information is to be brought forward then as with any matter of integrity there are those avenues to bring forward information at any stage.

‘But I think it goes to the point raised at the outset, this was never and not about relooking at the events or the decision. This was about looking at the sanction and whether behaviour since, and remediation, and the remorse was such that the ban could be modified.

‘So I think to open up if, anything has been opened up, I think that’s totally counter to the objectives of the process. I think it’s precisely what David was hoping would not happen when he applied for it to be done in private.’