Australian cricket great Ian Healy has weighed in on the stunning allegations made by David Warner’s manager James Erskine on Thursday.
Erskine alleged that more than three people knew about the ball tampering situation in South Africa, adding that unnamed executives insisted they do what was required to win.
“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,” Warner’s manager told 1170 SEN.
“The truth will come out, let me tell you,” Erskine continued.
“There’s lots of people. There’s two cricketers who put their hands up and said at the time, ‘Why don’t we all just tell the truth, they can’t fire all of us’. That’s what happened.
“Two senior executives were in the changing room in Hobart and basically were berating the team for losing against South Africa (in 2016) and Warner said we’ve got to reverse-swing the ball. The only way we can reverse-swing the ball is by tampering with it.
“And they were told to do it.”
Healy revealed he was in the changerooms on the day Erskine says this conversation took place.
“I’m a blind Black Labrador because I don’t know of anyone else (who knew). 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,” Healy told SENQ’s Pat and Heals.
“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.”
Australian Test captain Pat Cummins also made a comment on Thursday evening.
“I haven’t heard the comments today, but I’ve chatted to David today and he’s great. We really support Dave, he’s a huge part of our side and been fantastic for me my whole career,” Cummins said.
“He’s been an awesome leader, especially the last few years, and he has our absolute support and we really back him and respect his decision.”