Candice Warner, the wife of former Aussie vice-captain David Warner, has opened up on the emotional toll that the past few weeks have taken on their family, saying that her husband is an “emotional wreck” after yesterday’s press conference.
The Warners had already faced a difficult month in South Africa, with local cricket fans and players subjecting the pair to a barrage of taunts over her one-time hookup with rugby star Sonny Bill Williams, and even wearing masks with his face to games.
Then came the ball-tampering scandal that saw Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft banished from the national team, and facing the scorn of commentators and fans both in Australia and overseas.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph after her husband’s tearful press conference on Saturday, Candice Warner said:
“I’m sure there were things he wanted to say but he just couldn’t get it out. He is hurting. He is seriously, seriously struggling and he’s not in a great headspace … He’s just such an emotional wreck. I feel like it’s all my fault and it’s killing me – it’s absolutely killing me. I haven’t been much of a support because I’ve been a wreck. I’m really not well. If people could understand … if they could just sympathise just slightly with the month that he’s had.”
Last month, David Warner got into a heated altercation with SA wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock, trading verbal barbs in a stairwell after the latter continually taunted him about his wife’s youthful liaison with Sonny Bill Williams.
Both were disciplined after the incident, but it was part of a larger campaign that saw SA fans wearing Sonny Bill masks to games, and taunting the Warners with derogatory sledges and chants, and Candice says it took a significant toll on David’s state of mind:
“Seeing them wearing the masks. To have people staring and pointing and laughing at me, to have the signs, to have, you know, the songs made up about me – I would have to sit there and cop that. Dave would come home from the game and see me in tears in the bedroom, and the girls just looking at their mum. He had to just cope with it. Coming home today I walked into the room and I was in tears and our daughters were so upset. They were like, ‘why you crying, mummy?’ I had to make an excuse … it’s really hard to explain to kids and they don’t understand.”
David Warner has been handed a twelve-month suspension in the wake of the ball-tampering scandal, although at yesterday’s press conference, he said he is prepared for the possibility that he may never play cricket for Australia again.
