Usman Khawaja has claimed that the entire Australian dressing room knew about the sandpaper scandal during the Cape Town Test in 2018 despite the official line that only Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were aware of the wrongdoings.
Khawaja retired from Test cricket earlier this year. He was a part of the 2018 game at Newlands that led to bans for the three players who admitted responsibility.
Khawaja told the Sydney Morning Herald: “It was all of us. Not the batters, not the bowlers, not the staff. All of us.
“At the end of the day, I think it’s the right thing to do, particularly for those three guys. And I think most of the guys in the team, at some level, will be relieved that we can finally move on.”
His explosive claims, which feature in his new autobiography, Sabr, to be published next week, will rock Australian cricket. Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon had issued a joint statement in 2021 insisting that they had no idea about the plans to rub sandpaper on the ball in a bid to achieve reverse swing during the third Test against South Africa.
Darren Lehmann, the then coach, has denied Khawaja’s claims, saying “that’s part and parcel of selling books, I suppose.”
“I don’t think everyone would have known,” Lehmann said on ABC Grandstand, where he works now.
“But you do know ball-tampering is going on because it’s been happening for 150 years. So it’s just how it’s being done and how you would know to that extent, I suppose, and how the bowlers would know, how other players would know. So that’s an individual case by case…”