‘Everyone knew’: Australia’s 12th man in 2018 Cape Town Test rejects Cummins’ sandpapergate claim

Former pacer Chadd Sayers dismissed Australia captain Pat Cummins' sandpapergate claims from Friday. (AP Photo/Reuters)

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In a fresh reveal on Australia’s 2018 Sandpapergate crisis, former pacer Chadd Sayers rejected captain Pat Cummins’ claims on Friday that he wasn’t aware of the ball-tampering tactic during the South Africa tour.

Sayers, the 12th man in the infamous Cape Town Test against South Africa, where Cameron Bancroft, David Warner and Steve Smith were found guilty of ball-tampering, said that “everyone in the team” knew about the ploy to alter the nature of the ball.

Sayers, who made his only Test appearance in Johannesburg on that tour, dismissed Cummins’ claims that there was no discussion in the dressing room to take collective responsibility.

ALSO READ | Durban, a stairwell and a lie: Jim Maxwell remembers how Australia got to sandpaper-gate

“I’m comfortable sitting here … that I believe that everyone in that side knew what was going on and what was being used,” Sayers told SEN radio on Sunday. “I’m not taking sides. I’m neutral in all this. I’m just trying to tell my side of the story and what I believe happened.”

The scandal resurface earlier this week after former opener Usman Khawaja alleged in his autobiography that the entire team was aware of the sandpaper plot and had engaged in ball-tampering previously. Addressing the accusations on Friday, Cummins rejected them as “complete nonsense,” reiterating that he had no prior knowledge of the plan.

Sayers said Cummins’ rebuttal “felt a bit awkward.”

“I didn’t like how he [Cummins] did go at Usman and got personal. I probably get why but I don’t think it needed to happen.”

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“It’s been hard. Because you’ve got to tiptoe around it and not be able to tell the truth,” he said. “So it’s a bit of a relief that it’s out.

“That series was supposed to be a happy one for me because I debuted the Test after. But I guess when something like that happens it always gets drawn back to that conversation and not your debut.”

ALSO READ | Chronology of a scandal: The events leading up to Sandpapergate

Sayers said that conversations about owning up responsibility to the act lasted about an hour and a half in the dressing room.

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“We all sat in the change rooms after that day’s play, probably for 60 to 90 minutes, and just talked about what had happened and where to next,” Sayers said.

“It was always going to happen with the seriousness of what the allegations were. So it was about what had happened, where we stood with that, and how we were going to move forward.”