Life may never be the same again for three Australians

An Australian and the national chairman of the ANC walk into a hotel bar on Saturday night.

The Australian asks for a bottle of red wine. And some Coke. He puts in a glass and drinks it.

He sits quietly for a bit, eyeing the bottle.

He has an award-winning mullet.

It is shiny and lush, long and lovingly brushed at the back with just the right amount of spikiness on top.

He’s not in a happy mood.

It has not been a good day to be an Australian and he is at the Cullinan, the same hotel as the Australian cricket team.

He kicks off on a short rant about Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft to anyone who will listen.

He sounds confused and hurt. He stops, picks up his bottle of wine and heads to his room.

In the corner of the bar at the hotel sits Gwede Mantashe of the ANC.

He’s down for the Cape Town Jazz Festival, which is taking place across the road. He’s wearing a checked shirt, smiling and joking, sitting at a table at the far end of the bar.

Twenty-four hours later, David Warner sat down at that same table at the far end of the bar and “swilled” champagne, according to one report.

It was not a good place for Warner. He did the swilling alone.

A sneaky cellphone picture taken by a journalist shows the top part of his head peeking out above the bar stools.

There is no sign of the alleged champagne.

Perhaps that was the moment when he left the Australian team’s WhatsApp group.

Nobby No-Mates drowning his sorrows with a drink made for celebration.

On Monday, Warner, who said in an interview in December that he never drinks to excess any more as he has two kids, was talking privately to Australian journalists at the other end of the bar, closer to the entrance, away from the champers. He wore a resigned smirk and didn’t look all that put out.

Perhaps he had no idea of what was to come. Perhaps he did not know just how vicious the backlash was against a player and, by association, a team, that has developed an ugly reputation.

The Guardian journalist, Barney Ronay, tweets that “somehow Cricket Australia (CA) has achieved the impossible and made me feel sorry for David Warner”.

The one-year ban he received and the subsequent damning statement that he would never be considered for a leadership role in an international Australian cricket team was “a bit ridiculous”.

There is context to the harshness. CA are in the midst of negotiating their broadcast deal. They want more and the broadcasters, naturally, don’t want to pay too much more. Ball-tampering may be bad for business.

CA needed to show the TV companies that they were taking decisive action as the storm rages on. You just know that the TV folk will still use this to low-ball them.

Warner and Steve Smith were at the forefront of a salary battle between Australian players and CA last year. There was talk of a strike, with Warner suggesting that Australia might “not have a team for the Ashes”.

CA wanted to change the revenue-sharing structure. That may be partly why CA have gone so hard at the three in the balltampering kerfuffle.

Money and power.

The players have given them a lever to take back control of a team.

And not forgetting the money. Smith is on a R11-million annual retainer to play for Australia and gets a further R127 000 per match. Warner would be on the same pay scale. That’s a grand old saving for CA.

The timing of this could not have been worse for Smith, Warner and Cameron Bancroft . Three Australians walked into a bar this week. Their lives and Australian cricket may never be the same again.