Thuppahi's Blog

Australia captain Pat Cummins has described Usman Khawaja‘s allegation that the entire Australia XI in Cape Town in 2018 knew about the sandpaper use is ‘100% wrong’ and ‘complete and utter nonsense’.

Cummins fronted a press conference at Cricket Central in Sydney to respond to allegations in Khawaja’s book. In a stunning 68-minute long question-and-answer session, he strongly rebutted Khawaja’s claims that the entire team knew what was happening in terms of using illegal methods to tamper with the ball.

“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 said. “I’ve said that consistently for the last eight years, I did not know that was happening.

“But I think Usman actually says things that are actually far more serious than that.

“He says that I and others were architects of a scheme to ball-tamper with sandpaper. That’s complete and utter nonsense. I was genuinely shocked this week when I found out that Usman admitted that he told Cam [Bancroft] to be careful when using sandpaper.

“That’s not the Usman that I know. It’s not the Usman that I think, or that has been part of a team that’s helped rebuild this Australian cricket culture over the last eight years, and you know the Usman that would have stopped that from happening there and then. Usman’s a friend, but friends aren’t casual with each other’s lives and reputations.

“In his book, Ussie has been casual with my life and the lives of many others, and I think Australian cricket. “I support his right to tell a story 100%. I’m really glad that he feels like he can, but we have to be accountable for the things that we say and do.”

Cummins did state that he felt the team “had a win-at-all-costs mentality” and an “ugly underbelly” and there were “too many silos within the team” in 2018 that have since been eradicated. But he hit back at the allegations that the entire team was aware of a master-plan to use illegal methods to get the ball to reverse in 2018.

“There was no master-plan around using illegal methods,” Cummins said. “I think that’s maybe something that hasn’t been spoken about enough. People assume you’ve gone from very legal methods [to get the ball to reverse] to suddenly taking sandpaper, and there must have been some huge master-plan.

“The truth, that is not the case.

“That’s one of the reasons why I really want to talk through [it], because context and details matter around this. There’s no grand plan. There’s no team meeting. There’s no bowlers saying this is what must happen. I think there’s natural progressions that get you there.”

Cummins said he was surprised to read Khawaja’s allegation that sandpaper was used on the ball on the boundary edge before the start of a session during the Port Elizabeth Test [now Gqeberha], which was the contest prior to that at Cape Town.

“That was news to me this week,” Cummins said. “I had no idea. Even chatting a couple of guys, that was a revelation to us. That was one of the things that really surprised me because that doesn’t happen anymore.

“The umpires give the ball out to you in the middle, so I don’t remember that. I remember growing up, used to watch for the umpire dropping the ball, but I genuinely don’t remember that being the case. I don’t know where that stopped. So that was a revelation to me this week.”

Cummins said the only time he has seen ball-tampering in his professional career was when a New South Wales teammate used a bottle cap on the ball in a Sheffield Shield game early in his career, but he refused to detail which game it was and who the player was.

“He was a batter,” Cummins said. “He was a senior player, I won’t mention him, but he took a bottle cap out in the field, and that was the one time I’ve seen on the field. I was looking at it going, ‘Wow, that’s not okay.’ It was dealt with. The umpires knew it as well. They called him out and said, ‘You’ve got to stop that right now.’ He was dealt with. That’s the only time I’ve seen something illegal out there.”

Khawaja had alleged in his book that he had pushed for the entire team to take collective ownership of the ball-tampering in Cape Town and that two players had not wanted to do so. Cummins said he did not remember anyone suggesting they should take collective responsibility.

“First part, I don’t remember any conversation around collective responsibility,” Cummins said. “I don’t remember any team meeting where he stood up and said, ‘Let’s all own this as a team’. So then, to follow on, no, I’ve got no idea who those two people would be because I don’t remember ever being asked or having a conversation about it.

“I’ve spoken to quite a few other people, and [they are] exactly the same. Trying to piece it all together, no one remembers a team meeting where someone stood up and said, ‘We got to all own this.'”

Cummins confirmed he was interviewed as part of the initial investigation in Cape Town, which was conducted by CA’s then-head of integrity Iain Roy and High Performance manager Pat Howard.

“I got asked to be part of that review,” Cummins said. “There were some people that got specifically asked. I think it was the bowlers, and I can’t really remember who else. And then I remember specifically a couple of times [them] saying, ‘If anyone else has different accounts, or anyone else has information they’d like to share, please come forward and do that.’ I did my interview. I was totally truthful. I’ve been very consistent since then at that event till now. Nothing’s changed.”

Khawaja alleged in his book that he was not interviewed in that investigation despite sitting next to Bancroft in the Cape Town dressing-room. Cummins said he had spoken to CA chief executive Todd Greenberg on Friday morning prior to the press conference to confirm his recollections of what he said to investigators.

“I actually even spoke to Todd today,” Cummins said. “He’s like, ‘I’ve read all the investigations. Guys have been very, very consistent this whole time.'”

Greenberg said earlier this week that CA would not re-open the investigation. Cummins was asked whether they should.

“That’s up to CA,” Cummins said. “Part of why I think this is still lingering after eight years is there’s a lot of context around this, which is hard to explain and hard to articulate, and that’s what I want to do today. But there’s a very proper way to do things and an improper [way], and I think that investigation was the proper way to do it. Everyone was asked in the circumstances, with a game very quickly after, so yeah, that’s for CA. I think you could maybe argue whether the judgments were fair, but what can you do? I got asked all the questions, and answered them all fairly.”

Cummins confirmed he has spoken to Khawaja this week but did not divulge the details of that conversation, adding that he was grappling with how his relationship with a long-time friend will change after this. Though he said he had been advised that some of Khawaja’s allegations were “probably defamatory”, he insisted he wouldn’t be taking legal action.

“You’ve got to move on,” he said. “It’s been eight years … You got to draw the line at some point. I won’t be doing that.”

“I’ve played 15 years, my debut for New South Wales and with Australia, Usman was right there, and he’s been awesome to me, and he’s a friend,” Cummins said. “But this is people’s real lives, and this is serious. I saw [my wife] Becky on the news yesterday. Like this affects not only people but people’s families, and I’m one of the lesser ones. Maybe this week I’m right there. But talking eight years ago, like it was traumatic for those guys, for all of us, for Australian cricket, for fans. So to bring it up so flippantly and casually, I think it’s irresponsible. So yeah, they’re all things I’m grappling with at the moment.”

Cummins was firm in believing that the punishments handed out to Steve Smith, David Warner and Bancroft were “way too heavy-handed” and “way over the top.”

He added that he had not spoken to Warner or Bancroft since Khawaja’s book had been released and added that he did not have any issues with Bancroft despite an interview that he did with the Guardian in 2021, in which he claimed it was “self-explanatory” that the bowling group knew of the use of sandpaper.

Cummins confirmed he has spoken to Smith and said they were very aligned, not only on the sandpaper issue, but also after suggestions of frustration within Australia’s camp following Smith’s withdrawal from the third Test in South Africa due to a neck injury.

“I’ve spoken to Steve a few times since,” Cummins said. “He’s good. He’s saying his neck is feeling better. I think he gets into Australia very soon, and I think he is due to play a Shield game soon.

“We’re in a really good place. I think there was some unfair commentary around Steve in that last week. Perhaps I could have done a better job of trying to to soften that a bit. I think it probably got a little bit misconstrued how there was a level of disappointment in a such a big game that we were missing one of our great players. But no, we’re very aligned going ahead. Very excited. He’s very excited for the next 12 months. We’ll need him. I’ll need him, as captain, alongside me as vice-captain. So all very aligned.”