In a press conference at Cricket Central in Sydney, Australia captain Pat Cummins described Usman Khawaja’s allegation that the entire Australia XI in Cape Town in 2018 knew about the sandpaper use as “100% wrong” and “complete and utter nonsense,” Cricinfo reported.
The 68-minute question and answer session followed the release of Khawaja’s autobiography, Sabr. Khawaja alleged in the book that the entire team was aware of illegal ball-tampering methods during the 2018 tour of South Africa, stating “it was all of us” and calling for collective responsibility, as reported by the BBC.
Cummins strongly rebutted claims that he or the wider team acted as architects of a ball-tampering scheme. “When he says we all knew, if by that he means that we knew sandpaper was going out on the field, he’s 100% wrong,” Cummins told Cricinfo. “I’ve said that consistently for the last eight years, I did not know that was happening.”
The Australian Test captain admitted that the 2018 squad possessed an “ugly underbelly” with a “win at all costs mentality” and too many internal silos, but he firmly denied any master-plan existed. Alongside bowlers Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, and Nathan Lyon, Cummins previously issued a joint statement in 2021 maintaining they had no prior knowledge of foreign substances brought onto the field.
Former Australia vice-captain David Warner took to Instagram to support Khawaja’s version of events, declaring that the account was “100 per cent accurate,” according to Sky Sports. Warner received a year-long suspension and a lifetime leadership ban following the 2018 scandal.
Conversely, white-ball captain Mitchell Marsh declined to address the controversy during a press conference in Perth ahead of a one-day international series against England. “My honest answer is because I’ve moved on, I respect that others probably haven’t, but I have,” Marsh told the Guardian.
“Usman’s a friend, but friends aren’t casual with each other’s lives and reputations,” Cummins told Cricinfo. “In his book, Ussie has been casual with my lives and the lives of many others, and I think Australian cricket.”
Cricket Australia interim chair David Boon voiced support for the Test captain, stating that Cummins had led the team with integrity and success. Meanwhile, Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg stated earlier this week that the governing body would not reopen the ball-tampering investigation.
Cummins defended the original integrity investigation conducted in 2018 by Iain Roy and Pat Howard as the proper process. “I got asked all the questions, answered them all fairly,” Cummins told Cricinfo, leaving any decision to revisit the inquiry entirely up to Cricket Australia.
Related reading