'It's fundamentally wrong': Steve Smith critical of David Warner's lifetime leadership ban

David Warner's lifelong leadership suspension is "fundamentally wrong," according to Australia's acting captain Steve Smith, who also hopes that Warner regains his form following a week of "distraction" that led to him permanently giving up on his captaincy aspirations.

Warner withdrew his request to have his lifetime captaincy ban overturned on Wednesday, claiming that the review panel wanted to "publicly lynch" him and that he was unwilling to let his family to serve as "the washing machine for cricket's dirty laundry."

After Cameron Bancroft was seen using sandpaper on the ball during a Test match in South Africa in 2018, Warner and Smith were both given a one-year suspension. Warner received a lifetime ban from holding a leadership position in Australian cricket, while Smith received a two-year suspension. For a whole year, Bancroft was barred from serving as captain.

READ| 'Some things are more important than cricket': David Warner withdraws bid to be considered for Australia captaincy

Smith, who led Australia in the absence of an injured Pat Cummins and led the team to a 419-run victory over West Indies, said: "From my point of view, barring for life from leadership is just fundamentally wrong."

Like me, David served his sentence. For us, he is a group leader, and both on and off the field, he is doing a fantastic job. He has had a challenging day and a challenging week. Davey has undoubtedly found it to be more of a diversion while going through it himself.

"David has expressed that he is done and ready  to move on. He has our utmost support. I'm hoping he can have a really big series with the bat for us against South Africa," Smith added. 

Warner has now had four consecutive low scores in the longest format, reading 21 and 28 (second Test in Adelaide) and 5 and 48. (first Test in Perth).

Warner has only averaged 28.12 over the past two years without a century. The left-handed opener's spot for the forthcoming tours of India and England is in peril due to his poor performance. He is scheduled to play his 100th Test against South Africa in Melbourne at the end of the month.

"Davey's a once-in-a-generation player, he's arguably the best-ever opener for Australia. The way he's able to put pressure on bowlers from the outset helps everyone down the order as well," Smith said.

"He hasn't had a great deal of luck lately either, it seems like every time he gets an inside edge, it goes onto the stumps. A lot of the time when you're scoring runs you need some luck. For me it's in his body language the way he goes out there - he's really positive and just in a good frame of mind. Particularly yesterday when he went out to bat he was in a good frame of mind, the way his feet were moving was really sharp," he added.

Australia accomplished a 2-0 series sweep of the West Indies after winning the second match by 419 runs on Sunday, due to an excellent bowling effort on Day 4.

Mitchell Starc and Michael Neser were spot on as the West Indies were dismissed for 77 runs in their second innings in Adelaide.

READ| Australia beat West Indies by 419 runs to claim series clean sweep