‘A nightmare for Pat Cummins’: Why Khawaja claims are set to dog Australia captain

Among all the claims Usman Khawaja has published in the past few days – in his upcoming book and on his Instagram page – one was conspicuously wide of the mark.

“I was always conscious of putting my team first, but I’m not in that team any more,” Khawaja said in a video on Sunday morning. “Now, my words don’t influence the team at all.”

Khawaja may no longer be a part of the Australian set-up, having retired from international cricket after the Ashes in January this year. But the Test team gearing up for the summer opener against New Zealand on December 9 features a number of players from that infamous 2018 series, including captain Pat Cummins.

And as former Australian captain Mark Taylor put it on Sunday: “It’s going to be obviously a nightmare for Pat Cummins and the team leading into the summer of cricket.”

Normally, players bristle when the media brings up past controversies. This time, it is a former teammate who has reopened one of Australian cricket’s deepest wounds.

If Khawaja felt the full story of “Sandpapergate”, the Australian ball-tampering scandal in 2018, had to be told, there were other ways to bring it into the public domain than through a publicity blitz while promoting a book from which he hopes to profit. That is the feeling of some influential figures in cricket across the country who have spoken to this masthead.

After a weekend of headlines, explosive extracts and increasingly pointed responses, we still have not heard directly from the players at the centre of the original scandal.

Steve Smith, who served a one-year ban, is in New York and understood to be watching the fallout closely. He will return for the first Test in Perth, and his next press conference promises to be well attended.

Khawaja claims sandpaper was used to rough up the ball near the boundary during the second Test in Gqeberha, then known as Port Elizabeth, before Cameron Bancroft was caught with it in during the next match in Cape Town.

After the Cape Town incident, Smith told a press conference after play: “You can ask questions as much as you like, but I can promise you this is the first time that it’s happened.”

That statement now sits in defiance of Khawaja’s version of events.

David Warner, who also served a one-year ban, is in Nepal playing T20 cricket for the Kathmandu Gorkhas in the Nepal Premier League.

For one who spends so much time on social media, Warner’s silence after his childhood friend’s revelations speaks volumes. Whether he will offer his own account remains to be seen. He, too, has a book deal in his future.

Warner will be in the commentary box this summer for Kayo Sports. So will Khawaja.

Joining them will be former Australian cricketer Alyssa Healy, whose husband, Mitchell Starc, has had his integrity effectively called into question by Khawaja’s insistence that everyone – bowlers, batters and staff – knew that sandpaper was being used illegally during that series.

Healy will attend a Kayo Sports launch in Sydney on Tuesday. Neither Khawaja nor Warner will be there. Nathan Lyon was originally scheduled to appear, but withdrew because of the impending birth of his child, a decision made well before Khawaja’s comments.

The four main bowlers from Cape Town – Pat Cummins, Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Lyon – are standing by their 2021 statement, according to their managers.

That statement rejected suggestions they knew a foreign substance had been taken onto the field to alter the condition of the ball.

As things stand, they will not be releasing a fresh joint statement. The bowlers are content to let Khawaja do the talking. The social media reaction to his revelations has certainly not been universally supportive.

The bowlers have no desire to give Khawaja’s allegations any more oxygen, particularly after Khawaja doubled down on Sunday, refusing to retreat from his assertion that “everyone knew”.

How to sum up their mood behind closed doors? Annoyed, but hardly surprised.

Will they be inviting Khawaja over for a barbecue any time soon? No. Would they have anyway? Probably not.

The first member of the current Test team to face the media since Khawaja dropped his bombshell will likely be NSW captain Nic Maddinson, who is scheduled to speak on Monday ahead of the Blues’ Sheffield Shield clash with South Australia on Wednesday.

Maddinson had nothing to do with the 2018 South Africa tour. That won’t stop him being asked about a scandal that threatens to stick to Australian cricket like mud on a white shirt.

If he takes some wickets for NSW, Lyon may field questions after play about Khawaja’s admission that he was “pissed” that the off-spinner dropped a ball near South Africa’s AB de Villiers after a run-out during that series.

Similar inquiries await Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood whenever they make public appearances leading into the first Test.

Mitch Marsh is another player worth watching. He was part of the 2018 South Africa touring party and will captain Australia’s white-ball sides in upcoming matches against England, beginning on Friday.

Marsh has never given a detailed account of what happened in Cape Town and was not a signatory to the bowlers’ statement five years ago. His next press conference will be worth watching.

Then there is Bancroft, who is weighing up if and when to speak publicly. He has already read the controversial chapter of Khawaja’s book, Sabr, which will be released on Tuesday.

Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg will inevitably be drawn into the controversy, too.

Khawaja claims Greenberg, then head of the Australian Cricketers’ Association, agreed with him in 2021 that the bowlers and everyone else involved in Cape Town should have accepted collective responsibility. A penny for the bowlers’ thoughts on that one.

Darren Lehmann, the Australian coach at the time, suggested on Saturday that sometimes things are best left unsaid. Khawaja clearly disagrees. He believes he is doing the right thing and is entitled to tell and sell his version of events. But the manner and timing of his revelations have caused a major stir behind the scenes and ensured the fallout will dominate the build-up to the summer.

Eight years after Sandpapergate, Australian cricket is once again confronting a scandal it thought was buried. Only this time, the biggest threat isn’t coming from outside the dressing room. It’s coming from a player who was sitting inside it just a few months ago.

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