03 December 2023 , 15:30
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Australian cricket legend Mitchell Johnson has launched a remarkable attack on former team-mate David Warner ahead of his farewell Test series.
Two weeks after winning the ODI World Cup, Warner has been named in Australia's 14-man squad for their first Test against Pakistan, prompting ex-team-mate Johnson to tear into the uber successful but disgraced opening batsman. Lifting the lid on the infamous "Sandpapergate" incident which tarnished Warner's legacy and damaged Australian cricket, Johnson savaged the 38-year-old icon.
"As we prepare for David Warner's farewell series, can somebody please tell me why?" former fast bowler Johnson asked in a scathing column written for The West Australian. "Why a struggling Test opener gets to nominate his own retirement date? And why a player at the centre of one of the biggest scandals in Australian cricket history warrants a hero's send-off?"
Johnson retired from Test cricket in 2015, three years before the ball-tampering incident took place during a tour of South Africa. It resulted in Warner and captain Steve Smith both serving 12-month bans, while Cameron Bancroft was suspended for nine months. "Although Warner wasn't alone in Sandpapergate, he was at the time a senior member of the team and someone who liked to use his perceived power as a 'leader'," Johnson continued.
"Now the way he is going out is underpinned by more of the same arrogance and disrespect to our country. What will fans bring for Warner? Bunnings would sell out of sandpaper."
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The 42-year-old's outburst comes having spent five years as Warner's team-mate, together winning the 2015 ODI World Cup and whitewashing England in the 2013-14 Ashes series. It's not the first time that Johnson has laid into one of his former international team-mates, though.
In early 2022, he labelled Australia captain Pat Cummins "gutless" in the aftermath of Justin Langer's hotly-debated departure as Australia coach. In a column for the same newspaper, Johnson scathingly said of Cummins: "He has failed his first big test as captain pretty miserably. He had plenty of public opportunities to endorse an extension for Langer.
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Mitchell Johnson and David Warner spent five years as team-mates (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)"So when he let it through to the keeper every time, it became pretty obvious he didn't want it to happen. Cummins holds a lot of power and must have been central to what;s happened. He's clearly had an agenda to get in a coach he wants.
"His recent interviews have been gutless by not respecting his coach when he could have been upfront from the start. The baggy green is hyped as the most revered symbol in Australian sport. But what does it stand for now? In the wake of the disgraceful white-anting of Langer as coach, which led to his resignation on Saturday, it stands for selfishness."
Cummins' Australia have since lifted the ODI World Cup, retained the Ashes on English soil and won the World Test Championship.