Usman Khawaja cancels book interviews as Sandpapergate row grows
After a tough ABC grilling over whether Pat Cummins knew, Usman Khawaja pulled his remaining TV and radio interviews. Cricket Australia won't reopen the case.
Usman Khawaja has pulled out of his remaining TV and radio interviews for his autobiography, Sabr, a week after it reopened the 2018 ball-tampering scandal. What is new since we first reported his claim that “the whole team knew”: a bruising television interview, Cricket Australia refusing to reopen its inquiry, David Warner taking Khawaja’s side, and the players’ union asking everyone to stop the personal attacks.
That is why “Australia national cricket team” has been one of the top Google searches in Pakistan this week. Khawaja, born in Islamabad, is followed closely here.
The interview that changed the tour
On ABC’s 7.30, Khawaja was pressed on whether current captain Pat Cummins, who was in the 2018 Test side in Cape Town, knew sandpaper was being used on the ball. He would not answer. “I’ve written what I’ve written in my book,” he said, according to Yahoo Sports and other outlets that carried the exchange.
Within a day, his remaining broadcast interviews were dropped. His publisher, Penguin, played it down. “The book tour is 100 per cent still going ahead,” a spokesperson said, adding that only “adjustments” had been made this week.
Who said what
- Cricket Australia has ruled out reopening the investigation and says it “remains comfortable” with its original findings, which punished Cameron Bancroft, Steve Smith and David Warner.
- Mitchell Starc, one of the bowlers in that side, has rejected Khawaja’s claim.
- David Warner backed Khawaja and called the original inquiry “rushed and botched”, urging Cricket Australia to look again.
- The Australian Cricketers’ Association did not take sides but called for an end to the personal attacks and online abuse aimed at the people involved, The Tribune and The Hindu reported.
Khawaja has also refused to name individual bowlers, which is part of why the story keeps going: the claim implicates a group of players without naming them, and none of them can easily answer it.
Why it matters
Sandpapergate cost Smith the captaincy and a year out of the game, as it did Warner, and Bancroft was banned for nine months. If more players knew, it changes how that punishment looks. But for now there is no new inquiry, only one retired opener’s account against his former teammates’ denials, and the book tour is going on without the TV studios.
