Cummins confirms Khawaja alerted him to book’s sandpaper scandal details
Pat Cummins has confirmed Usman Khawaja gave him the heads-up on his soon-to-be-released book, which will reveal the retired batter’s side of the sandpaper scandal from eight years ago.
Reports emerged in the lead-up to the first Test in Durban that Khawaja had spoken with Cummins and Cricket Australia chief Todd Greenberg about a section of the book and its detail around the incident.
Pat Cummins and Usman Khawaja. Getty
The Age confirmed with Greenberg the exchange did happen and that the book would be released after the series.
Cummins told reporters ahead of the first Test that he had no problem with Khawaja’s book, titled Sabr.
“Uz gave me a buzz a few weeks back that he is releasing a book a few weeks ago. He didn’t go into too much detail, just basically gave me the heads-up that he is doing a book and, as always, no worries,” he said.
“Tell your story. It’s fine. It’s obviously a long time ago and all the investigations, everything was done back then, and we answered every question a million times.
“It was dealt with then and all I can say is that as a group, we have moved on.”
The ball-tampering saga from eight years ago has created all the hype for this series despite Australia having already toured in white-ball cricket.
South African broadcaster, SuperSport, stoked the fire even more on October 7 when it posted a video to social media from 2018 with the caption “our cameras will be sharp for this three-match Test series”.
The video included the full sequence of events from when the focus was on Cameron Bancroft, to Darren Lehmann in the dressing room on the radio followed by substitute fielder Peter Handscomb on the radio at ground level.
There was also footage of Faf du Plessis mimicking ball-tampering while he waited to bat and then the video of Bancroft putting sandpaper down his pants before the umpires spoke to him.
David Warner was characterised as the ringleader of the incident and banned alongside Steve Smith and Bancroft.
Warner and Khawaja share a close friendship from their junior days of playing cricket.
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age reported in a preview to the series that Khawaja had wanted the playing group to take ownership of the scandal as a collective.
The bowling group that played in that 2018 Test were Cummins, Mitch Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon.
Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft face the media after the Cape Town cheating scandal. Getty
All four have previously stated they were not aware Bancroft had brought sandpaper on to the field.
“We did not know a foreign substance was taken onto the field to alter the condition of the ball until we saw the images on the big screen at Newlands,” a statement read in 2021 after Bancroft said an interview with The Guardian that it was “self-explanatory” whether the bowlers knew about the plan.
“The truth will come out,” he said.
“You’d have to be a blind black Labrador to (not) realise that there was far more than three people involved in this thing.”
