Usman Khawaja says the 2018 sandpaper plan was known to the entire Australian touring party, not just the three players who were punished, and that sandpaper had already been used in the previous Test in Gqeberha.
The former Australia opener made the claims to Nine newspapers ahead of his memoir, Sabr, which is due out on Tuesday. “It was all of us,” he said, according to ABC News. Cricket Australia (CA) says it remains comfortable with its findings.
What Khawaja says, and what CA found
In Khawaja’s account, dressing-room talk at St George’s Park about how to rough up the ball led to sandpaper being used there. He says he sat next to Cameron Bancroft throughout the Newlands Test in Cape Town in March 2018 and was never interviewed by CA’s investigators.
The official version is different. CA’s inquiry, led by then head of integrity Iain Roy, concluded that only Steve Smith, David Warner and Bancroft knew of the plan beforehand. Smith and Warner were banned for 12 months and Bancroft for nine. CA has said the review included interviews with players and support staff, with two ICC integrity officers present, and cleared everyone else in the touring party.
On Saturday a CA spokesperson said any relevant information presented so far had been properly considered, and that the opportunity to present more remains open. CA has pointed to its existing findings rather than announcing a new review.
Others dispute Khawaja’s version. Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon denied in 2021 that they knew of the plan. Darren Lehmann, Australia’s coach in 2018, told ABC Sport he does not believe everyone knew, and that he was unaware of the conversation between Bancroft and a coaching-staff member that Khawaja describes. He also said ball tampering was widespread in the game before that day.
The two accounts cannot be settled on the public record. One is a documented 2018 investigation. The other is a participant’s recollection from eight years ago, so far seen only in extracts.
Why South Africa is part of the story
Khawaja also says South Africa were far better than Australia at working on the ball and that Australia were trying to keep up. That is his characterisation, and ABC’s report sets out no evidence for it. ABC notes that Faf du Plessis, South Africa’s captain in 2018, had twice been sanctioned for ball tampering.
The setting matters beyond the dispute itself. Both grounds Khawaja names, St George’s Park and Newlands, are among the eight South African venues for next year’s Men’s Cricket World Cup. The ICC’s host-venue announcement lists 12 venues across South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia for the 57-match tournament, the first in Africa for 24 years.
Analysis: a tournament that opens with a continental welcome will also revive a scandal that is still unresolved for some of those who were there.
What to watch: whether the chapters in Sabr add detail beyond the extracts, whether other players or staff from that tour respond on the record, and whether anyone takes up CA’s open invitation to submit information.
