David Warner Claims Three Bowlers Were Not Interviewed in 2018 Inquiry

David Warner has alleged that three Australian bowlers were not interviewed during Cricket Australia’s 2018 internal investigation into the Cape Town ball-tampering scandal, a claim directly contradicted by sources familiar with the inquiry.

“It looks like they had decided who they wanted to blame from the very beginning, and ran a shoddy investigation to serve the purpose, and now they want to maintain the false narrative that the bowlers had no idea,” the former opening batter David Warner wrote on Instagram on Saturday.

According to reporting by nine.com.au, David Warner claimed that Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, and Nathan Lyon were not interviewed during the investigation.

However, sources with knowledge of the matter told nine.com.au and the ABC that all three bowlers were indeed interviewed by then-integrity chief Iain Roy as part of the investigation.

Current Test captain Pat Cummins also confirmed during a lengthy press conference on Friday that he participated in the inquiry, a stance supported by sources close to the bowling group who maintain that every front-line bowler from the 2018 Test was spoken to.

The dispute follows the publication of Usman Khawaja’s autobiography, Sabr, in which the batter alleged he was never interviewed by investigators.

Conflicting accounts of the investigation

Cricket Australia has responded to the renewed controversy by stating that it respected the different recollections among the 2018 playing group. The organization said that all players were given the opportunity to speak at the time and have retained the ability to come forward with new evidence in the eight years since the incident.

Dr. Simon Longstaff, who conducted a separate, broader review into team culture for Cricket Australia, said he invited various stakeholders to participate in his process. While he could not recall if Khawaja was directly invited, he emphasized that not everyone chose to accept his invitation.

“Some people saying one thing, others another, but not sufficient to be able to say there needs to be a further inquiry at that time,” Dr. Simon Longstaff, who conducted a separate, broader review into team culture for Cricket Australia, told nine.com.au.

The divide over team knowledge

The tension has been exacerbated by conflicting public statements regarding how many players knew about the use of sandpaper on the ball. While Cummins insisted on Friday that claims suggesting the entire team was aware were “100% wrong,” both Warner and Khawaja have publicly supported the assertion that responsibility should have been shared more broadly.

Warner, who served a one-year ban alongside Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft, accused Cummins of throwing Khawaja “under the bus” for disputing the claims, while writing on Instagram that the investigation was shoddy and designed to maintain a false narrative.

Recurring questions on the 2018 probe

Despite the intense scrutiny, Cricket Australia chief Todd Greenberg indicated this week that the governing body does not intend to reopen the investigation.

As the debate continues, the fundamental contradiction is that while the bowlers and Cricket Australia maintain that the investigation was thorough and that the bowling unit was unaware of the tampering, several former teammates continue to assert that more players beyond the three sanctioned individuals knew about the practice.

“There’s been consistent denials from the bowling team as a whole, and that stands in contrast now to what Usman Khawaja and David Warner are both asserting,” Longstaff told nine.com.au. “Inevitably, when you find this kind of conflict of opinion, there is a reason behind it. It’s just a question of whether or not Cricket Australia wants to determine what that is.”

More on this story: David Warner Supports Usman Khawaja's Account of 2018 Ball-Tampering · Cricket Australia Rejects Calls to Reopen 2018 Sandpapergate Inquiry