David Warner has had plenty of time off to think about what happened in the Newlands test earlier this year, with his IPL contract torn up.

He’s been keeping a rather low profile, and the last time we heard his name mentioned was when new Ozzie coach Justin Langer called him a “really good young bloke who made a mistake”.

Quite a few mistakes strung together, actually, but all of that is pretty irrelevant next to the revelation that his wife, Candice, suffered a miscarriage in the wake of the scandal.

In a new interview with Women’s Weekly, Candice spoke about how difficult the tour was on a personal, and family, level:

Looking back, Candice Warner felt the tour was cursed to begin with. “That attack during the first test in Durban when Quinton [de Kock] called me [terrible, shameful] names – I should’ve known it wasn’t going to end well.”

Conveniently forgetting that her husband verbally abused Quinton’s sister and mother, but again, bigger issues in play:

But what came next, no one saw coming. “I was feeling so happy that day,” Candice recalls. “I hoped the terrible stuff was behind us. We love Cape Town and it’s where Dave proposed to me in 2014. I was beginning to feel that first stage of being pregnant – the subtle changes to my body were kicking in. We were overwhelmed, knowing another little Warner was on the way.”

“I don’t think either of us realised how much we longed for this baby. We had been trying since last July and I did a test when we first got to Cape Town,” she says.

Here’s her Instagram post with the front cover, and obligatory argument in the comments section:

She speaks openly about how the personal attacks on her, with some South Africans thinking it was humorous to wear Sonny Bill Williams masks and wave derogatory banners being the final straw:

“Nothing could’ve prepared me for what was about to happen.”

“I felt like a dirty, horrible person – it was like I cracked in half. It was a deliberate and very personal attack and I felt so ashamed of my past. People were staring and pointing at me, but I knew I had to put on a brave face for our girls.”

“I was raised much like Dave, to cop it on the chin. But there’s no denying I was a target right from the start of the tour and I’d have to be bullet-proof for the taunting not to have affected me. It rocked my very foundation and I paid the ultimate price, losing our baby. It was the final blow.”

“I wonder how all those who came after me feel now?”

She also had some choice words for Cricket South Africa (CSA):

“My parents were with us when it all went down in South Africa, they stood proudly at my side throughout the entire Sonny Bill ordeal and have been there for us through the miscarriage. I finally received a very weak apology from Cricket South Africa – I realised they’re the ones to feel ashamed, not me.”

CSA did look like pricks when two of their officials, Clive Eksteen and Altaaf Kazi, posed with fans wearing the masks:

And then the miscarriage itself:

“A week after the press conference,” she remembers, “I woke up feeling pretty ordinary. I called Dave to the bathroom and told him I was bleeding. We knew I was miscarrying and we held one another and cried. ”

“The miscarriage was a tragic consequence, a heartbreaking end to a horror tour. Like so many families who’ve experienced a miscarriage, it’s just really sad. The entire ordeal from the public humiliations to the ball tampering, it had taken its toll and, from that moment, we decided that no sport, nothing will ever impact our lives like that again.”

She finished the interview by answering the ‘what comes next’ question:

Dave loves the newly appointed coach, Justin Langer, and believes he’s the man to sweep out the debris and inject a whole new confidence into the team. I know Dave will want to be a part of that transformation.”

“This could be one of the great blessings in disguise – what’s happened to us. With his girls at his side, I know he can do anything. I was asked recently if I love cricket. I answered, no, I don’t, but I love Dave.”

I still maintain that David Warner is a dickhead, and he led a coordinated effort to cheat, but it would have been great if the South African public had stuck to abusing him and him alone.

Then again, the Australian media coverage after the incident was more brutal than anything from South African outlets, so I’m sure she directs much of her ire in their direction, too.

Just take a look at some of the comments on this tweet from the Sydney Morning Herald:

And the same on a tweet from the Australian:

Whatever your thoughts on the Warner family, suffering a miscarriage is a tragic and gut-wrenching thing to go through.

[source:womensweekly]