David Warner in line to become Australia’s new captain? Board consider revoking captaincy ban: Reports

David Warner could be in-line to take over as Australia’s next skipper after Cricket Australia (CA) hinted that they would be willing to revoke the lifetime ban on David Warner, which would have barred him from holding leadership positions in the team. The cricket body will review the integrity code in Friday’s board meeting which would be the ‘first step’ to Warner’s rehabilitation. 

Warner was banned from the sport for a year and subsequently, the lifetime ban on holding leadership positions was also imposed by CA after the opener was found guilty in the ball-tampering scandal in 2018. 

More recently, many former players and current ones have raised their voice regarding the ban to be revoked so that the 35-year-old can be considered for the captaincy role in ODIs. 

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Earlier, Aaron Finch had vacated the ODI skipper role, having announced his retirement from the format. 

“The view within Cricket Australia is that David is doing particularly well on the field and making a great contribution,” said CA chairperson Lachlan Henderson on Thursday, during the annual general meeting. 

“The first step in terms of David’s leadership ban is to review the code and see if those sanctions are able to be reviewed. And the appropriate revisions to that code that would need to be made,” added Henderson. 

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Earlier, Mitchell Marsh had also been backed to take over from Finch, however, he has ruled himself out of the running for captaincy, instead endorsing Warner for the top job. 

“Probably not to be honest, I’m out of the race,” Marsh was quoted as saying by ESPN Cricinfo. 

“I’ve had to get the body right for this World Cup. The World Cup is such an exciting prospect for all of us, to worry about that sort of stuff [captaincy] is just not on my radar at the moment,” he stated. 

The top-order batsman further added, “He’s (Warner) a great leader among our group, As far as all the decisions go, I certainly steer clear of all those conversations. But he’s a great man to have in the squad.”