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Pat Cummins says Khawaja’s claim ‘complete and utter nonsense’
Cummins says he was “genuinely shocked” this week amid the comments in Khawaja’s book. He went on:
When he says we all knew, if [by] that he means we knew sandpaper was going out on the field, he’s 100% wrong. I said that consistently for the last eight years. I did not know that was happening …
He says that I and others were architects of a scheme to ball-tamper with sandpaper. That’s complete and utter nonsense.
Cummins goes on to say he believes Khawaja’s book has “been casual with my [life] and the lives of many others, and I think Australian cricket”.
Key events
Cummins: bans for Smith, Warner and Bancroft were ‘way over the top’
Another issue addressed in Cummins’s press conference – he took questions for more than an hour – was the punishment handed down to the three players Cricket Australia’s investigation found were responsible for bringing sandpaper onto the field: Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft.
Cummins said he believed the punishments handed down in the wake of the scandal were “way over the top”. Smith and Warner were handed one-year bans, Bancroft (while the player who carried the sandpaper on to the field, he was the most junior of the three) received a nine-month ban.
Cummins said the sandpaper scandal happened “in the middle of a chaotic series”.
“There was a lot of lawlessness about what was going on in that series … it was just a crazy series and I’m very glad we haven’t seen a series like that since.
“And it [ball tampering] was also quite prevalent. We have heard stories of other teams doing it.
“I think the whole scale got a little bit lost (in the punishments given to those three players).
“It’s my personal opinion but I think their bans were way over the top.”
Cummins: sandpaper ‘very normal around training’
Cummins spoke about sandpaper itself, saying it is common for cricketers to carry it in their kitbags.
It’s actually, again, quite a normal thing. We carry sandpaper, normally for the batters; they rough up their bats. But we actually use it for balls as well around training. You face a lot of reverse swing, so the batters want to face it and practise it in the net.
We’ve scratched balls on concrete, I’ve seen someone use a Stanley knife, I’ve seen sandpaper used. So, all the methods are very normal around training, so again I think it comes to [the claim that] ‘there must have been a grand plan’ because for the non-cricket, maybe for the non-international, player it sounds absurd, and it is absurd to take sandpaper on the field, but trying to give a bit more context – it is a part of the change room.
We may have been doing it around training, but there is a leap to then think it’s OK to take it on field, but maybe not perhaps as big a leap as some people may think.
From ABC sports commentator Alison Mitchell:
Cummins on ‘the dark arts’ of ball management
More than once, Cummins used the phrase “the dark arts” to describe what is more euphemistically known as “ball management” on the cricket field.
A theme that emerged from the press conference is that around 2018, teams all over world cricket were seeking every possible advantage in working the ball: keeping it shiny and hard initially so that it would swing conventionally, and then roughing it up once it got old, so that it would “go” reverse.
Cummins was asked about the dark arts. “Why not? Let’s get into it,” he said.
I had heard superglue on brandings, so you shine the ball there. I’ve heard zippers, I’ve heard superglue on gloves, the keeper’s gloves so you can catch it. I have heard nail polish, layers and layers of nail polish. I bite my fingers, so I would be terrible but growing [a nail] out and make it super hard and using that. I’ve heard, obviously, the Murray Mints as one.
(The Murray Mints is a reference to former England bat Marcus Trescothick who revealed in his autobiography that, during the 2005 Ashes series (which England won) he would suck on Murray Mints in the field, and use his sugary saliva to shine the ball to keep it swinging.)
Recapping some elements of Pat Cummins’ marathon press conference
Cummins said the most serious allegation raised by Usman Khawaja in Sabr was not the sandpaper incident at Newlands in 2018, but his allegation that he (Khawaja) was overlooked as the Australian test captain - in the wake of the sandpaper crisis – because he was not white.
Khawaja wrote it was a “kick in the guts” that Tim Paine, the wicketkeeper only recently returned to the Test team, was appointed interim captain after Smith was sent home from Cape Town.
Khawaja wrote:
I was a natural selection for interim captain, but was overlooked. I knew why. One reason was that I’d been a main protagonist during those pay disputes with CA and the board – and the board was who appointed the captain. On that basis alone, they probably weren’t going to give it to me.
But the second – and, I believe, more important – reason was that they weren’t ready for a brown Australian cricket captain, even as an interim. You may be thinking, How do you know this? It’s because the chairman of selectors had told a journalist I know very well that ‘Uzzy doesn’t “have” what we want in a captain. He doesn’t display the right stuff.’ I was pretty sure I knew what that meant. I didn’t fit the old-school Aussie mode or have the right skin colour for the job.
Cummins addressed that directly in his press conference:
I think of all the things I’ve read this week, I think that’s actually the most serious. To think the job that I hold is quarantined from people based on their skin colour, that’s a pretty big statement. I think if you’re going to say that, I think you’ve got to have some evidence, and I just don’t think that’s the case.
So again, I agree with Uzzy on a lot of things, but I disagree. I tell him that I disagree and him saying that if you’re Australian captain you have to be a certain skin colour, I couldn’t disagree with that statement any more.
‘Hopefully … we can move on to more fun topics like actual cricket’
Cummins is done. He says he hopes the de facto question time will put an end to the episode:
Hopefully today we put a line through it and we can move on to much more fun topics, like actual cricket starting this afternoon.
Cummins rules out taking any legal action
Cummins won’t be taking any legal action. He says:
I mean, I did get advised this week that some of the things that have [been] said are probably defamatory. I won’t be doing that. You got to move on. It’s been eight years.
We’re moving on, we are moving on. You got to draw the line at some point. I won’t be doing that.
‘Maybe we should have done a better job of explaining’
Cummins maintains he will stay until the questions finish, noting the presser has gone on for over an hour. He adds:
Maybe we should have done a better job of explaining over the years. Perhaps the public does deserve it. We are Australian property. But it is a really difficult one.
Cummins: ‘there’s a lot of nuance’ in what bowlers do to the ball
Cummins is speaking now about the nuance of ball politics.
The details matter because I can totally understand if you hear and have a passing interest in cricket and you see that sandpaper has been taken on to the field; I can see why it is jarring.
There’s a huge spectrum here of right and wrong, but there’s a lot of nuance. You are allowed to shine a ball. You are allowed to apply saliva. Not any more, but you were. But you cannot apply too much, you cannot load it up.
… There’s a lot of nuance and we take each extreme, I will shine it with a bit of saliva and maybe I have some sugar in my mouth. You can see how the boundaries get pushed a bit.
Cummins: cricket now ‘in a much better spot’
Cummins is getting asked a lot of detailed questions about the episode, but he says some of the fine-tuned inquiries are difficult to speak to as they took place almost a decade ago.
This is a hard thing to talk about because a lot of what we are referring to is eight and a half years ago and was dealt with, and I think the world is a better place for going through it. I think it’s in a much better spot.
Cummins: Test series at centre of sandpaper scandal took place in ‘lawless’ era
We’re still going.
Cummins says the past series at the centre of the initial controversy took place during a “lawless” era.
“I’m glad we have not seen a series like that since,” he says.
This press conference is approaching 45 minutes. Cummins says he’ll stay until journalists had exhausted all of their questions, and then hopefully move on permanently from the rehashed controversy.
Cummins says it seems the issue has been ‘sitting heavy’ on Khawaja
Cummins won’t say much about any exchanges he’s had with Khawaja this week, saying they’re personal conversations and he doesn’t want to “go into it”.
When asked why he thinks the revelations are coming out now, Cummins says:
It looks like it’s been sitting heavy on him for a while. It’s eight and a half years ago. I get that … Maybe this is Usman’s chance and he never really got over it at the time.
But he reiterates that he believes the claims are “irresponsible”.
‘We have moved on’
Cummins said he’s been frustrated Khawaja’s book is relitigating an episode from more than eight years ago, adding it had reopened trauma for some:
It’s eight and a half years, we have moved on.
We’ll keep saying it but, again, these are people’s lives. It was traumatic for some of them. They have had to work through quite a bit to get out the other side.
So again, that’s why I’m really disappointed and frustrated this week … how it’s been dealt with so flippantly.
Cummins says there’s a ‘proper way to do things’
Cummins says he believes there was a proper way to handle the sandpaper incident, pointing to the Cricket Australia investigation shortly afterwards.
Cricket Australia’s chief executive, Todd Greenberg, told media this week there was not “any compelling reason” to revisit the investigation, even though there are “specific details” in Khawaja’s book “that contradict the versions that have been provided by others”.
Cummins goes on:
There’s a very proper way to do things and improve. I think that investigation was a proper way to do it.
Everyone was asked in the circumstances about a game very quickly after. So that’s for CA. I think you can maybe argue whether the judgements were fair, but what can you do? I got asked all the questions, answered them all fairly.
‘I think he’s wrong’, Cummins says
A reporter just asked about the difference in stories. Cummins replied:
That’s my story, so I think he’s wrong.
He went on to say there appeared to be a “few big leaps” in the book and Khawaja had been “vague” and acted in a “very casual matter”:
The details really matter in that difference. So perhaps there was conversations with Cameron Bancroft around taking sandpaper out and how to do it. That doesn’t mean that everyone in that dressing room knew what was going on.
‘There was no master plan around using illegal methods’
Pat Cummins:
There was no master plan around using illegal methods. I think that’s maybe something that hasn’t been spoken about enough. People assume you have gone from very legal methods to suddenly taking sandpaper and then there must have been some huge master plan.
That is not the case …
There’s no grand plan, there’s no team meeting, there’s no bowlers saying ‘this is what must happen’.
Cummins: ‘I did not see anything on the ball’
Cummins was asked how the ball looked at the time.
At that stage, you know, even the umpires had a look. We didn’t know it had been altered with sandpaper.
Balls get roughened up every time we play. So, you know, whether that’s from a foreign object or something that’s totally legal and part of the game. Sometimes it’s hard to know. But out there in the field I did not see anything on the ball.
Pat Cummins says Khawaja’s claim ‘complete and utter nonsense’
Cummins says he was “genuinely shocked” this week amid the comments in Khawaja’s book. He went on:
When he says we all knew, if [by] that he means we knew sandpaper was going out on the field, he’s 100% wrong. I said that consistently for the last eight years. I did not know that was happening …
He says that I and others were architects of a scheme to ball-tamper with sandpaper. That’s complete and utter nonsense.
Cummins goes on to say he believes Khawaja’s book has “been casual with my [life] and the lives of many others, and I think Australian cricket”.
Cummins is fronting the media now.
Khawaja memoir ‘readable, surprisingly revealing, sometimes painfully frank’
Gideon Haigh, writing for the Guardian this week, says the greatest shame of the controversy inflamed by Usman Khawaja’s memoir, Sabr, is that “99% of those opining about it will never read it”.
They will experience it by quotes and summaries, magnified and distorted, elided and exaggerated, shaped by voyeurism and schadenfreude.
In fact, Sabr is a readable, surprisingly revealing, sometimes painfully frank book about a unique career.
Haigh says Khawaja was among the most talented batters in an Australian generation “when it was not in oversupply”, but points out he played in only 22% of the national team’s total fixtures over that period.
If he developed a carapace to deal with such endless disappointment, should that surprise anyone?
Sabr might mean patience or resilience in Urdu, but a strength of Khawaja’s testament is that he allows the impatience to show through.
It is a cranky book because, perhaps, a degree of crankiness is what it takes to come back and back and back, when one is never sure one’s abilities are appreciated and one’s face fits.
Read more here:
Jack Snape
Starc statement: ‘we weren’t aware of things being taken on the field’
Earlier this week, Mitchell Starc denied claims made in Khawaja’s book.
Starc broke his silence to address Khawaja’s comments, saying he was not aware that sandpaper was used in the Test before Cape Town, nor during the Newlands match. The paceman said his recollection of the match had not changed from what the bowlers said in a statement issued in 2021, which denied all knowledge of the ball-tampering plan.
He said:
As far as our statement said, we weren’t aware of things being taken on the field, that’s where I’ll leave it. We weren’t aware anything was taken on to the field to be tampered with. We saw [the sandpaper] on the big screen in Cape Town.
As far as the book is concerned, I haven’t read it. I probably won’t read it. So that’s for Usman to elaborate on.
I’ll stick to what I said five years ago, what I said at the time, eight years ago. Clearly, there’s different versions from different people, and I’ll leave it where I left it back then.
Read more:
A quick recap of how we got here ...
In 2018, during the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town, Australia’s opening batter, Cameron Bancroft, was caught on TV using sandpaper against one side of the cricket ball.
An investigation revealed the tampering was planned by the captain, Steve Smith, and vice-captain, David Warner. Both, as well as Bancroft, received bans from international and local cricket.
Fast-forward to now – and former Australian batter Usman Khawaja alleged in his autobiography, Sabr: Finding My Way in Cricket and Life, that the use of sandpaper was widespread.
Khawaja alleged the tampering happened earlier in the series at Port Elizabeth and that the entire team knew about it. Cummins has not commented – until now.
Read more from our reporter, Jack Snape:
Welcome
The Australian cricket captain, Pat Cummins, is to speak for the first time on the sandpaper scandal since allegations about ball tampering from his former teammate Usman Khawaja.
Cummins posted to social media that he would speak to reporters on Friday morning at Cricket NSW’s headquarters in Sydney.
I’m training at Cricket Central tomorrow morning before the Blues play in the Shield match.
Happy to speak with any and all media about the events of this week at 9.30 am.
I’ve taken some time to try and better understand the long list and full extent of Uzzy’s allegations so I can respond properly.
Afterwards please stay and support the Blues!
I’ll ask CA to send out details
Stay with us.
