Cricket: Candice Warner defends David Warner over cheating claim on SAS Australia

Candice has her husband's back. Photo / Instagram

Candice Warner has suggested her husband, Australian cricket star David Warner, has more to say about the infamous ball tampering scandal of 2018 and implied fans don't know the full story about what happened.

Warner and then-captain Steve Smith were banned from international and domestic cricket for 12 months, and opening batsman Cameron Bancroft was given a nine-month suspension, when the trio were found to be involved in using sandpaper to alter the state of the ball during a Test match in South Africa two-and-a-half years ago.

Warner in particular was slammed for his role in the scandal, having been identified by Bancroft as the ring leader who encouraged the youngster to cheat.

However, speaking about the affair on Channel 7's SAS Australia, Candice hinted there was more to the story.

Asked if Warner had tampered with the ball, Candice said: "No. That's other people's opinion. He has never said his part."

"Too many people I feel are quick to make a judgment or opinions on myself or my family," she added.

"The media make us out to be people that we're not — bad people, bad parents."

Candice also referred to an incident in South Africa where she was mocked by cricket fans wearing Sonny Bill Williams face masks — a reference to her toilet tryst with the footy star in a Sydney hotel 13 years ago.

Candice and Warner have three children together and the former ironwoman opened up on the painful toll the sick taunts took.

"There were incidents in South Africa where people were trying to make fun of me, mock me. Belittle me in front of my family," she said.

"Because of an incident that happened in the past. And they think it's funny."

Smith and Bancroft both gave TV interviews about the ball tampering scandal while serving their bans, but Warner has refused to open up publicly on the biggest controversy in Australian cricket since the underarm incident in 1981.

Instead, he has worked to refine his bad boy image and in February this year won the Allan Border Medal as Australian cricket's best player.

Warner's manager James Erskine told the Sydney Morning Herald his client "will write a book" to address the sandpaper scandal one day, when the time is right.

Candice has also addressed her romantic encounter with Williams during her time on SAS Australia.

In a harrowing interrogation scene on the Channel 7 program, Candice, 35, confessed: "In my early 20s I made a very big mistake.

"It is something I am not proud of but something I can never take back.

"I put myself in a situation where I shouldn't have and because of that I brought embarrassment (and) shame to my family."

A member of the public used a mobile phone to capture the hook-up between Candice and Williams at the Clovelly Hotel in Sydney's eastern suburbs on a Saturday night in April, 2007.

At the time Candice, 22, was an ironwoman and Williams, 21, was playing for the Canterbury Bulldogs in the NRL.