As Australian cricket continues to deal with the ghosts of Sandpapergate, some old comments from Usman Khawaja during the infamous tour of South Africa have resurfaced.
Khawaja put the saga back in the spotlight with explosive allegations in his book that claimed the entire team knew about the plot.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Cummins rejects Khawaja’s sandpapergate bombshell claims
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Cameron Bancroft, who was in charge of using sandpaper to roughen up one side of the ball, copped a nine-month ban in the wake of the cheating scandal, while Steve Smith and David Warner were suspended for a year and stripped of their leadership roles.
Khawaja’s claims were immediately supported by fellow retired opening batter David Warner, but current captain Pat Cummins hit back during an extraordinary 90-minute press conference on Friday morning.
Cummins steadfastly rejected claims he had any prior knowledge of the 2018 plot to use sandpaper on the ball in order to gain reverse swing.
He also hit out at Khawaja, saying the accusations were “complete nonsense” and suggested they were “probably defamatory”.
The sandpaper scandal occurred during the third Test of the series, but Khawaja claimed they were also doing it in the second Test in Port Elizabeth.
Khawaja argued the ball-tampering tactics helped the Aussies reverse swing the ball with devastating results.
Reverse swing is forever linked with ball tampering, with many experts now arguing it’s gone out of the game since the sandpaper scandal.
Curiously, Khawaja previously spoken about reverse swing on that South Africa tour. He was interviewed after the opening day of play of the first Test when he mentioned how South Africa were able to get it swinging early.
“It’s a good pitch. There was obviously a little bit of a reverse swing yesterday,” he said at the time.
“It started pretty early, so it’ll be interesting to see, hopefully we can get the ball shifting around early too, but the wicket’s pretty good.”
When asked which Aussie bowlers will be the most threatening on the pitch, Khawaja mentioned reverse swing again.
“Good question. I’m not really sure. All of them. They’re all pretty good bowlers … But, you know, reverse swing, you’re always sort of thinking maybe Mitch Starc, Josh Hazelwood, Pat Cummins … they all bowl really good reverse swing, so it’s handy to have them.”
The clip of the interview has since gone viral with many fans pointing out the amount of times Khawaja mentions reverse swing.
Shane Warne’s eerie 2022 comments on sandpaper scandal
Australian cricket legend Shane Warne also had some interesting old comments that have since resurfaced.
Shortly before his death in 2022, Warne was on a podcast discussing Cricket Australia’s investigation into the sandpaper scandal.
He questioned whether anyone at Cricket Australia knows the truth about the scandal and took aim at the “bowling cartel”.
“We still don’t know the truth about what actually happened at Sandpapergate. Does Cricket Australia know the truth? Do they?” Warne said on the Follow-On podcast.
“Do the same people know the truth about Sandpapergate? Are they hiding anything?”
“We’ve seen that the bowling cartel, as they call themselves, or ‘Winx’ and ‘GOAT’ and all these unbelievable nicknames they have for themselves.
“These guys wrote a letter saying they had no knowledge of whatever went on.
“That might be correct. But if it’s not and they’ve done that, there are all sorts of whispers or rumours that we all have heard. And one day the truth will come out.”
