Cummins rejects Khawaja’s sandpaper claims as Warner hits back at Australia cricket captain

Australia’s cricket captain Pat Cummins has rejected claims by former teammate Usman Khawaja that the whole team knew about the 2018 plan to tamper with the ball, telling a press conference in Sydney on Friday, 13 November, that Khawaja was wrong. Former vice-captain David Warner, who backs Khawaja’s account, hit back within hours, ABC and AFP reported.

What Khawaja says

Khawaja, who has retired, published his autobiography this week, with a chapter on the 2018 scandal in South Africa. During the Test match in Cape Town, Australian players roughed up the ball with sandpaper to make it swing more in the air. Khawaja says the whole team, Cummins included, knew about it, and that the tactic had already been used in the previous Test in Port Elizabeth.

A Cricket Australia investigation at the time found that only three players knew about the plan: Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft. Smith and Warner were banned for a year and Bancroft for nine months. Cummins and fellow fast bowlers Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon denied any knowledge of the plan in a joint statement in 2021.

The captain’s response

“When he says we all knew, if by that he means we knew sandpaper was going out on the field, he’s 100% wrong. I’ve said that consistently for the last eight years. I did not know that was happening,” Cummins said. He accused Khawaja of being casual with his and others’ reputations: “Usman is a friend, but friends aren’t casual with each other’s lives and reputations.” Cummins also said he did not remember the dressing-room meeting Khawaja describes, at which he says he urged the team to take collective responsibility.

The captain did admit that the team’s culture around 2018 had “a bit of an arrogance and a bit of an ugliness at times”, and said he had worked hard since then to make sure the current side was different.

Warner: “under the bus”

Warner, a childhood friend of Khawaja, said on Fox Cricket before Australia’s one-day international against England in Perth that he still stood by Khawaja. “I feel the captain today threw Uzzie under the bus and I’m very, very disappointed by that,” he said. Warner repeated that the 2018 inquiry had been a “botched investigation” and said he would not let the issue rest until the truth came out.

Cricket Australia has ruled out reopening the investigation. Darren Lehmann, the head coach at the time, and former batting coach Graeme Hick have also denied knowing about the plan, while Smith and Bancroft have not commented publicly.