More than eight years on, the stench around “Sandpapergate” is as overpowering now as it was when TV cameras picked up Cameron Bancroft ball-tampering during the Cape Town Test match.
Apologies for the crude analogy but for Australian cricket this is the unflushable turd. However hard they try and move on, it just won’t go away. Now the fallout from Usman Khawaja’s bombshell allegations promise to have ramifications way beyond next summer’s Ashes.
Khawaja, who retired from cricket at the end of last winter’s Ashes, has alleged in his upcoming book Sabr that it wasn’t only Bancroft, Steve Smith and David Warner who were involved in the 2018 ball-tampering scandal in South Africa.
“It was all of us,” he said. “Not the batters, not the bowlers, not the staff. All of us.”
Taking collective responsibility at the time when the plot was uncovered was discussed in the dressing-room, says Khawaja, but in the end, it was a path the team decided not to take.
Pat Cummins confirmed that Khawaja gave him a polite heads-up about the contents of his autobiography (Photo: Getty)He also says that the third Test in Cape Town wasn’t the first time Australia had used sandpaper to doctor the ball. They had, states Khawaja, also used it in the previous Test in Gqeberha.
For those England players who privately remain convinced Australia tampered with the ball during the 2017-18 Ashes just a few months before that South Africa tour this will not come as a surprise. Nor for any cricket fan with half a brain cell. It was always suspected that the bowlers, in particular, knew what was going on.
Bancroft more or less said this during an interview with The Guardian in 2021. That led to Pat Cummins, now captain, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon collectively releasing a statement denying that was the case. All have been silent since Khawaja’s allegations surfaced.
“In an ideal world, I don’t want to do this,” Khawaja said. “I don’t want to be the one who comes out and talks about the truth. The issue is that I genuinely thought after eight years the truth would have been out by now.”
Cricket Australia, which handed out lengthy bans to Smith, Warner and Bancroft, released a statement in response to Khawaja’s allegations. “We remain comfortable with the findings of our integrity process,” it said. But how long will that stance hold?
This situation was always likely to come. The Australian governing body’s own investigation at the time was limited to just the Cape Town Test.
Adam Gilchrist, the former Australia captain, telegraphed this in 2021 when he said: “There was an opportunity for Cricket Australia to do a more thorough investigation.
“It will linger for ever and ever, whether it’s someone’s book or an ad hoc interview, eventually names will be named. There’s a few people that have got it stored away and are ready to pull the trigger when the time is right.”
Darren Lehmann, Australia coach at the time, has denied Khawaja’s suggestions that the whole team knew.
But Chad Sayers, a member of the squad on that infamous tour has backed up his former teammate, telling Australian website Code Sports: “Everything Usman says in his article is accurate, but if he felt so strongly about it, why didn’t he say something at the time?”
Yet Khawaja, in a stream of Instagram posts over the weekend, doubled down on his allegations and defended his reasons for coming clean now.
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Opinion: Australia’s pensioners are Ashes mutton ready for slaughter Transfer news: Two counties rule out Anderson, Hampshire eye England legend, Notts get RobinsonThere seems little appetite from Cricket Australia to reopen the investigation – and hand out potential further bans that would affect next summer’s series against England. Yet what will the ramifications be for Cummins, a captain who is already under pressure after the recent series defeat in South Africa?
At some point, he will have to face the media. Could this tip him over the edge? Whatever happens, one thing is obvious. Khawaja’s allegations, whether true or not, promise to taint an entire generation of Australian cricketers.
As for the 2027 Ashes, Australia’s players will have to get used to the common refrain still chanted by England fans – “Same old Aussies, always cheating.” It promises to be the soundtrack of the summer.
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