Khawaja says whole Australia team knew of sandpaper use in 2018 Cape Town Test
Usman Khawaja said the entire Australia team knew about the use of sandpaper to tamper with the ball in the final Test of their 2018 series with South Africa in Cape Town, in extracts of his autobiography Sabr published in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Khawaja, who made his Test debut for Australia against England in 2011, wrote that the ball-tampering tactic had been discussed and used before the Cape Town match. The incident, widely labelled 'sandpapergate', resulted in bans for Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft. Khawaja, 39, finished his Test career with 6,229 runs in 88 matches.
Khawaja wrote: "It was all of us. Not the batters, not the bowlers, not the staff. All of us." He named the matter as a collective team issue while other members have publicly disputed that description; the four Australia bowlers who played in that match, including current Test captain Pat Cummins, have consistently denied they had any prior knowledge of the plan.
According to Khawaja, talks about tampering began during the second Test of the series, played at Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha), where he says the dressing-room discussions led to the "discovery of sandpaper as an effective agent" after what he described as "open" conversations. He added: "At this point Smith essentially threw his hands in the air and said he didn't want to know," writing that Smith sought to distance himself.
Khawaja said he was surprised he was not asked to provide evidence during Cricket Australia's investigation into the incident and wrote: "In an ideal world, I don't want to do this. I don't want to be the one who comes out and talks about the truth." He also wrote: "The issue is that I genuinely thought after eight years the truth would have been out by now."
In 2021, Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon issued a joint statement which said they "did not know a foreign substance was taken on to the field" and added: "We feel compelled to put the key facts on the record again. We did not know a foreign substance was taken on to the field to alter the condition of the ball until we saw the images on the big screen at Newlands. And to those who, despite the absence of evidence, insist that 'we must have known' about the use of a foreign substance simply because we are bowlers, we say this: The umpires during that Test match, Nigel Llong and Richard Illingworth, both very respected and experienced umpires, inspected the ball after the images surfaced on the TV coverage and did not change it because there was no sign of damage. We respectfully request an end to the rumour-mongering and innuendo. It has gone on too long and it is time to move on." Bancroft, in a 2021 interview with the Guardian, was asked if the bowlers knew and replied: "It's pretty probably self-explanatory."
Khawaja wrote that he had urged the playing group to accept collective responsibility in the dressing room after the Cape Town Test, stating: "I said: 'Take this as a team. We did this as a team. We knew what was going on, and we have to take it as a team'." He added: "Obviously, it didn't work that way, and those three guys got crucified," and wrote that Smith, Warner and Bancroft "deserve" the "justice" of collective blame. On his motives he wrote: "None of those three want to be the first to say anything. And rightly so, it will just be hearsay and 'their word' if they do. They needed someone else to say something. But I'm not doing this for any other reason than I think it's the right thing to do."
Before Australia's recent Test series in South Africa, which the Proteas won 2-1, Cummins said he had spoken to Khawaja about the publication of the book and on 8 October said he had no concerns, adding: "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," and: "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."
