David Warner has apologised for the language he used during his Twitter outburst on Saturday but said he felt the need to defend himself after a photo of him was used to illustrate a story on the seedy side of the IPL. Warner has arrived home in Australia after his long stint in India with Delhi Daredevils and he spoke to reporters at the SCG on Thursday, the day after he was fined A$5750 at a Cricket Australia Code of Behaviour hearing.
Warner said he had been woken during the early hours of Saturday by WhatsApp, an instant messaging application on his phone, and found that his friends had seen the Courier-Mail article and asked him what was going on. Warner then took his anger out in a series of tweets directed at journalist Robert Craddock, who in the article had discussed the recent arrest of three Rajasthan Royals players over alleged spot-fixing.
“I was just extremely annoyed with my image being used on that related article,” Warner told reporters on Thursday. “I was trying to defend myself because anyone who looks at the photograph can automatically assume that I’m related to what happened over there.
“If I let it go and didn’t say anything, was I going to be defended by others? We just don’t know that. What I did through Twitter, for myself it was disappointing and I shouldn’t have done that and I shouldn’t have used the language that I did.”
In his initial tweet, Warner wrote “Shock me @crashcraddock1 talking s*** about ipl jealous p****. Get a real job. All you do is bag people. #getalife”. He used similar language in a series of tweets directed at Craddock and his News Limited colleague Malcolm Conn, who weighed in on Twitter.
“I’ve got to be a bit more professional with the choice of words that I use next time,” Warner said. “I’ll keep speaking my mind and always have my opinion and always continue to try and defend myself in the right choice of words … If I had my time again I’d definitely make a phone-call to Robert and ask him why the sub-editors used that image.”
Warner sat down with Conn to put the issue behind them on Thursday morning and his focus has now turned firmly towards the Champions Trophy and Ashes in England. Warner is keen to ensure his Test form lifts from the disappointing tour of India in February and March, when he scored 195 runs at 24.37.
“I don’t think [this adds] more pressure at all,” he said. “I just want to put a line under this and move forward defending the Champions Trophy and hopefully try to bring back the urn. That’s my goal, to score as many runs as I can for the Australian team and hopefully we can win both those tournaments while we’re away.”
