"The bans those boys copped were a bit over the top for the crime" - Former Australian captain wants David Warner's leadership role ban to come to an end

Former Australia captain Allan Border believes David Warner's lifetime leadership ban should be lifted given the severity of the offense. The 35-year-old batter was found guilty of ball-tampering alongside then-captain Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft during the 2018 tour of South Africa.

Warner was hit with a year-long ban from the sport as well as a lifetime leadership ban. Smith, on the other hand, was handed only a two-year ban from captaincy. He availed the opportunity to lead the side in the second Ashes Test against England last year.

Several former Australian cricketers have come out in support of David Warner and asked Cricket Australia to revisit the ban they meted out four years ago.

Opining that Warner has served the punishment for the actions, which were not as heinous as they sounded anyway, former Aussie skipper Allan Border told Fox Sports:

"It was a harsh penalty in the first place … Let’s get on with it; they’ve served their time. I know that every other side’s doing exactly what we were caught doing. (If) all the captains put their hand on their heart and say ‘I wasn’t doing anything similar’, they’d be telling ‘porky pies’ (lies)."

He continued:

"The bans those boys copped were a bit over the top for the crime, given the knowledge around the cricket fraternity where this has been going on. They all had to change the way they went about their cricket."

Along with Border, former Australia captain Greg Chappell also urged Cricket Australia to put an end to the New South Wales-born cricketer's captaincy ban. He failed to understand why Warner was handed a lifetime ban when compared to Steve Smith's two-year prohibition from leadership.

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Allan Border backs the concept of natural ball tampering unlike David Warner and co's approach

The trio of David Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft succeeded in tampering the ball with the use of sandpaper. While Border did not support the notion, he is not against the idea of tampering with the ball using bare hands, without the use of foreign substances.

Suggesting that ball tampering may be required on flat tracks, given the standards of pitches in modern-day cricket, Border said:

"Reverse swing is a huge weapon to have at your disposal. On the flattest of wickets, you can still get people out. If you get the ball in your hand … Just scratching the ball and working on it over a period of time, and you get the ball reverse swinging … What's wrong with that?"

He concluded:

"It’s not a bad idea because on flat wickets you need something, otherwise the scores are just going to blow out, and that’s what happens now when we start preparing result wickets, because it’s very hard to get good players out on very flat tracks."

There has been an increased trend of high run-chases in Test cricket at the minute. Moreover, the art of reverse swing has seen a drastic decrease in the longest form of the game, with bowlers often left at a disadvantage.