• Warner’s wife suffers miscarriage

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    David Warner’s wife, Candice, has revealed that she and her husband endured the tragedy of a miscarriage following the ball-tampering scandal in Cape Town earlier this year.

    The 33-year-old shared her heartbreak with the Australian Women’s Weekly after a tumultuous few months for the family and Australian cricket at large. From the highs of reclaiming the Ashes in late 2017 – and receiving the happy news during the tour to South Africa that Candice was pregnant – through to the horrors of the Sonny Bill Williams media circus, the ball-tampering disaster and the related mental and physical stress that combined to induce her miscarriage.

    Candice revealed to Australian Women’s Weekly that the miscarriage was, understandably, ‘a heartbreaking end to a horror tour’ which saw Australian cricket implode on-field and off, losing their first Test series in South Africa for almost 50 years, and with vice-captain Warner along with two teammates copping bans from Cricket Australia for their roles in the ball-tampering fiasco.

    ‘The ordeal from the public humiliations to the ball-tampering had taken its toll and, from that moment, we decided nothing will impact our lives like that again,’ said Candice.

    The former Ironwoman revealed that she and her husband had been trying for a third child for months and were overjoyed when they received a positive result from a pregnancy test she took in Cape Town.

    ‘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,’ Candice told the Australian women’s magazine. ‘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.’

    What should have been the start of a blissful family journey imploded as a result of the vociferous and personal attacks hurled at her and her husband from the media and public as a result of the on-field fighting between the Proteas and the under-pressure Australian players, as well as the unprecedented scandal of ball-tampering in the Cape Town Test match.

    Warner claims that she and her husband had hoped to travel back home with his two disgraced teammates, but that they were booked on separate flights, with the Warner family reportedly having to endure the longest route home. A gruelling 23-hour flight home, allied to the barrage of negative media and public outcry, added to the enormous stress on the couple.

    ‘We got the longest and tough route. No one knew I was pregnant and Dave did everything to get me home safely, fearing any more strain could affect our unborn child,’ she said.

    Candice went on to claim that her husband’s involvement in the ball-tampering incident was a result of the stress he had endured following the on-field taunting from Proteas players (and the resulting social media avalanche) levelled at him about his wife and her involvement with Williams in 2007. She claims that the family received a ‘weak’ apology from Cricket South Africa for the taunts, but added that ‘I realised they’re the ones to feel ashamed, not me’.

    The highly emotional and controversial Australian tour to South Africa was the focus of Supersport’s 60-minute television documentary, ‘Crossing the Line’, which followed the Australian side’s demise from winning the Ashes to losing the Test series in South Africa and the disgrace of being caught cheating on cricket’s most hallowed arena.

    Candice also extended her apologies to former NRL star Sonny Bill Williams and his family for their own emotional suffering as a result of the fallout from the media feeding frenzy.

    Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

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    Simon Lewis