David Warner says a book recounting his cricket journey including the sandpaper scandal of 2018 is “definitely in the pipeline” and will “raise some eyebrows” when it is eventually released.
The retired Test opener suggested he would not retell his complete personal version of events during the ball-tampering incident in South Africa for which he was given a 12 month ban, so as not to burden the current playing group.
But he didn’t rule it out down the track.
Warner was given the year long ban from Australian after he was found to have orchestrated the 2018 incident, and his manager James Erskine has said “the truth will come out” about how many members of the Australian team knew about the plan.
In an interview with Adam Gilchrist and former England captain Michael Vaughan on their Prairie Club Fire podcast, just 48 hours after his Test retirement, Warner also again steered clear of backing his former opening partner Cameron Bancroft to replace him in the Test side after the pair fell out in the wake of the scandal.
“There’s definitely a book in the pipeline, and I think it will be an interesting read,” Warner told Gilchrist and Vaughan.
“There’s going to be a lot of things in that book that I think are going to raise some eyebrows.
“I’ll have to edit a few chapters now, there’s a few more that have been added. It was 1500 pages, now it’s probably 2000,” he joked.
Warner said he was mindful of the Australian team’s success when it came to sharing his views on the ball-tampering saga and suggested he may wait until the current generation of players is finished before giving his version of events.
“It’s something that’s been thought of (discussing Newlands in the book) … it does keep getting brought up, and there’s been a lot of speculation, a lot of comments about it,” he said.
It’s really important that the Australian cricket team is in a great space, that we’re playing well in all three formats, and I think that’s the upmost priority.
“My side of the story … that can be told whenever. There are probably some things in the book that are definitely going to be related to 2018, but it’s not potentially going to be around what I know, what others know, because then it just becomes a tit-for-tat – it’s not that kind of story.”
Warner said he had still heard nothing about who would replace him in the Test side, but disagreed with Cameron Bancroft’s call for a “traditional” specialist opener to fill his role.
The 37-year-old endorsed Marcus Harris to replace him as the logical “next cab off the rank” during the Boxing Day Test, but said on Monday Steve Smith could adapt to a new position.
“It’s a tough one, you had Cameron Bancroft come out the other day and talk about a traditionalist, I’ve spoken about myself never opening and then making my way into that position,” he said.
“I think (Smith) would go well, he is the best Test batsman in the world, he just finds a way.
“It’s probably the challenge of it which I think he probably wants to get into.
“He’s ticked the box off where he is now … he probably just wants to see if he can go out and open. He’ll adapt to any situation … he’ll do very, very well.”