Australia captain Pat Cummins has agreed to break his silence on the ball-tampering scandal that has returned to haunt Australian cricket, announcing he will face the media on Friday morning to answer Usman Khawaja’s explosive claims. Cummins said on Thursday he would speak to reporters at 9:30am at Cricket Central in Sydney, ahead of New South Wales’ Sheffield Shield match, after taking time to study what he called the long list of allegations in Khawaja’s new book.
Khawaja, who retired from international cricket earlier this year, reignited the controversy last weekend ahead of the release of his autobiography, Sabr. In the book he claims the entire Australian team on the 2018 tour of South Africa knew about the plan to rough up the ball with sandpaper during the third Test at Cape Town. He also claims the tactic had been used earlier in the series, in the second Test at Port Elizabeth, and that responsibility for what happened was shared far more widely than the official account ever suggested.
The claims cut directly against the findings of the Cricket Australia investigation that followed the Cape Town Test. That inquiry concluded that only three players, then captain Steve Smith, his deputy David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, knew about the plot. All three were sent home in disgrace and handed lengthy bans, while the rest of the team was cleared. Cummins and fellow bowlers Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon later issued a joint statement in 2021 denying they had known anything about a foreign substance being taken onto the field.
Cummins, who was part of that bowling group in 2018, has faced growing pressure to speak since Khawaja’s book put the issue back in the spotlight. In a post on social media on Thursday, he invited any and all media to attend the session and said he wanted to respond properly rather than rush out a reply. He added that he had taken time to better understand the full extent of the allegations, and asked Cricket Australia to circulate the details of the briefing.
Starc, meanwhile, restated his position on Wednesday, telling reporters his opinion and his recollection had not changed since the bowlers’ statement five years ago. He said that as far as their statement went, the bowlers were not aware of anything being taken onto the field, and left it there. Warner, who served a 12-month ban for his part in the scandal, has publicly backed his close friend Khawaja’s version of events, while Cricket Australia has ruled out reopening its investigation into the affair.
The timing adds to the drama. Cummins has been rested from Australia’s white-ball series against England, which begins on Friday with the first one-day international in Perth, so his media appearance in Sydney will take place on the same morning. Khawaja, for his part, cancelled a book tour this week after an awkward television interview in which he declined to confirm whether the bowlers had been involved. All eyes will now be on what Cummins says when he finally faces the questions he has avoided for the past week.
