Usman Khawaja defends timing of 2018 ball-tampering revelations after posting on Instagram

Usman Khawaja defended on Sunday the timing of his disclosures about a ball-tampering episode involving sandpaper during Australia’s 2018 Test series in South Africa, speaking in a two-part Instagram video a day after his initial claims. He said he had planned to reveal details much earlier but was persuaded not to do so at the time and that his memoir includes further allegations about the incident.

In a five-minute explanation Khawaja said he had intended to go public days after the incident in 2018 but was talked out of it by Steve Smith, and that he later tried in 2021 to secure collective responsibility for the team before a public statement from the bowlers denied any knowledge. He revealed he had made a pact with his childhood friend David Warner to disclose the full account after retiring, and that extracts from his memoir Sabr describe a player applying sandpaper to the ball in the second Test at St George’s Park in 2018, with Cameron Bancroft volunteering to use the substance.

Khawaja says the sandpaper application began only at the start of sessions when the team returned to the field in that match, but that the practice escalated to on-field use in the following Test in Cape Town. He also alleges in the book that a member of Australia’s coaching staff encouraged Bancroft to increase what he was doing with the ball, a claim tied to the sequence that led to Bancroft being caught by cameras and umpires in Cape Town.

Addressing criticism of his decision to publish the material now, Khawaja said: "I haven’t thrown anyone under the bus." He added: "The guys that are currently in the team right now and the other people that were there on the South African tour, including me, we’re not the victims. "These three guys took the blame for all of us. They’re the victims ... people telling them that they’re cheats, getting nailed by the crowd. Public humiliation."

Khawaja described a first attempt to speak out in 2018, saying: "I told Smudge [Smith] that I was going to come clean to the media. I couldn’t believe the penalties he got. But Smudge being the man and leader he was, he talked me out of it. "He wanted to take the blame. I argued with him, but he was having none of it. That’s the first time I try to come out." He also said he discussed the matter with then-coach Justin Langer and Todd Greenberg in 2021 about the team taking collective responsibility.

The 39-year-old said he did not feel able to raise the issue while he was back in the Australian side from 2022 and insisted delaying publication until after Australia’s recent Test visit to South Africa showed the timing was not commercially motivated. "Call me a chicken or whatever you want. I didn’t know how to do it because I was still in the team," he said. "I was always conscious of putting my team first, but I’m not in that team anymore. What I say now isn’t a reflection of them anymore." He added: "I stuck up for all cricketers in the past with the ACA [the players’ union] fighting for what I thought was right. This is no different. These three guys deserve justice and I haven’t pointed fingers at anyone."

Khawaja has criticised Cricket Australia over its handling of the Cape Town investigation and said he was not interviewed as part of that process. Cricket Australia has said it is "comfortable" with its 2018 findings that only Warner, Smith and Bancroft knew of the plan, while current players Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon have distanced themselves, insisting they had no knowledge "of a foreign substance" being taken on the field.

Extracts from Khawaja’s memoir Sabr, which will be released on Tuesday, contain the detailed allegations he outlined in his Instagram posts and in the passages published ahead of the book’s release.