David Warner and wife Candice lost a child to miscarriage after ball-tampering scandal

Candice Warner, the wife of tainted former Australian vice-captain David Warner, has revealed that she had suffered a miscarriage in the aftermath of the massive ball-tampering scandal that sent shock waves through the cricket world.

Warner, along with former skipper Steve Smith, was handed a one-year ban from both domestic and international cricket while bowler Cameron Bancroft was given a suspension of nine months for their involvement in ball-tampering scandal that took place during the third Test of the four-match series against South Africa in March this year.

And Candice revealed that the couple lost her baby just a few days after her husband's first press conference after the scandal in Sydney wherein he emotionally apologised "unreservedly" for his misdoings. 

She, meanwhile, insisted that stress and taunting that her family has received following the scandal was the main reason behind her miscarriage, talking to Australian Women's Weekly magazine.

She attributed the loss to stress and an arduous flight home. 

"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. I wonder how all those who came after me feel now?" Candice told the The Australian Women's Weekly.

Warner's wife then described the couple's devastation on realizing she was miscarrying.

"I called Dave to the bathroom and told him I was bleeding. We knew I was miscarrying. We held one another and cried. The miscarriage was a heartbreaking end to a horror tour. The ordeal from the public humiliations to the ball tapering had taken its toll and, from that moment, we decided nothing will impact our lives like that again," she revealed.

Candice further said that she got to know that the couple would be having a third child when they arrived in Cape Town ahead of the third Test.

"We were overwhelmed, knowing another little Warner was on the way," she said. "I don't think either of us realised how much we longed for this baby," she said.

The couple already has two daughters, three-year-old Ivy Mae and two-year-old Indi Rae. 

Australia's tour of South Africa had started badly, with Warner charged with bringing the game into disrepute during the first Test for an altercation with Quinton de Kock.

Warner claimed de Kock made a "vile and disgusting" remark about his wife.

"That attack during the first Test in Durban when Quinton called me names - I should've known it wasn't going to end well," said Candice Warner.

She said she was watching on TV with her two children when the ball-tampering incident flared up during the third Test and "I sat slumped on the bed and wondered if I could take any more." 

In the aftermath, her husband wanted to return to Australia with Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft, who were also involved in the scandal, but they were put on separate flights with the Warner family handed the longest route back.

"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, adding that she was in "a bad state".

On arrival in Sydney, they were met with a media scrum, adding to the ordeal.

"We'd been assured it was a private exit and we'd managed to leave quietly from Johannesburg," she told the magazine.

"I was completely gutted when I saw the media -- especially after 23 hours flying, knowing the world had no idea I was carrying our third child." 

Her husband, banned from state and international cricket for his part in the plan to use sandpaper to tamper with the ball, will begin his road to redemption by playing club cricket with Sydney's Randwick Petersham from September.