Cricket Australia says it wants to move on from ball‑tampering scandal, but equivocation prolongs the story
Cricket Australia on 11 November 2026 said it wants to move on from the ball‑tampering scandal that has hung over Australian cricket since 2018, but critics and recent developments suggest the issue continues to fester in public debate.
The controversy began in 2018 and prompted a furious public reaction that included then‑prime minister Malcolm Turnbull calling it a "terrible disgrace" and saying, "They now have to make sure this great national game, this great international game that is synonymous with fair play, is once again played by champions that everybody can look up to." The episode prompted an Ethics Centre review that produced a 116‑page document using the "Everest Process" to assess Cricket Australia’s alignment with its ethical framework, applying measures such as "Mostly not lived", "sometimes lived" and "always lived".
Public commentary at the time framed the Australian side as a mean, cosseted and joyless group, amplified by critical tabloids, poor television coverage and marketing missteps, although the post‑sandpaper‑gate team produced few further scandals. The appointment of Pat Cummins as captain is credited in the original account with changing the team’s outward demeanor; Peter Lalor wrote in The Australian: "No sledging, no arguing, no anger, no love gone wrong, no dust ups, no bust ups." Some commentators responded by arguing the team had become "too woke" or "too nice".
The events in Cape Town, however, remained an undercurrent and resurfaced as part of ongoing debate. Mitchell Starc was quoted on the eve of this year’s South African tour asking, "What’s left to come out after eight years?" Meanwhile the publication plans and public comments of former players have continued to prompt discussion: the piece notes that Usman Khawaja and David Warner have published or posted material that has reignited interest, with Warner’s thoughts posted from Nepal while he was said to be "taking time out from demolition duties at the Kathmandu Gorkhas". Khawaja has been described as having "an axe to grind" and one columnist wrote of "his talent for inserting race, religion and victimhood into his story".
The initial press conference in 2018 is characterised in the original account as a "shambling, fudging, lying shambles" and the subsequent investigation is described as "wholly unsatisfactory." Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg told SEN that "There were a lot of learnings that came out of it," and the article recalls a remark by a former CA boss, James Sutherland, that cricket was "an issues‑rich environment." The piece criticises such corporate phrasing as evasive and a missed opportunity for direct accountability.
The author argues Khawaja’s book offered a moment for those involved and their successors to be explicit about what occurred and to distinguish between detailed knowledge and collective responsibility, observing that revisiting the matter now "wouldn’t destroy careers" in the way it might have in 2018. Instead, the article contends, repeated calls to "move on" combined with equivocation have had the opposite effect.
The piece concludes that the continual hesitation to address the episode fully risks prolonging it further, dragging the story "on to the next press conference, the next Instagram post and the next book, until it festers into something much bigger than it needs to be. Just like it did eight years ago."