Breaking: Warner says ball-tampering investigation 'stinks of a cover-up'

Posted Sat 14 Nov 2026 at 2:44pmSat 14 Nov 2026 at 2:44pm, updated Sat 14 Nov 2026 at 2:52pmSat 14 Nov 2026 at 2:52pm

David Warner says Cricket Australia's investigation into the ball tampering perpetrated by the team, which saw him banned for a year, was poorly handled and had a pre-determined outcome.

Immediately after Pat Cummins's marathon press conference on Friday, Warner said the current Australia Test captain had "thrown [Usman Khawaja] under the bus" by rejecting claims that more people were responsible for sandpaper entering the field of play during the 2018 Cape Town Test.

He has expanded his criticism on social media, saying Cricket Australia's (CA) investigation into the incident was not comprehensive and was therefore unreliable.

"As far as I am aware, CA did not interview Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc or Nathan Lyon in their 2018 investigation. If that's correct, then how can CA push the idea that the bowlers didn't know?" Warner wrote.

"It looks like they had decided who they wanted to blame from the very beginning, ran a shoddy investigation to serve the purpose and now they want to maintain the false narrative that bowlers had no idea.

"That stinks of a cover-up."

Cricket Australia said in response: "As we have stated previously, all players were given the opportunity to speak at the time of the initial investigation and have had the ability to come forward with new evidence in the eight years since.

"Subsequently, CA has respected every player and former players right to provide their own version of events."

In his new book, Khawaja said he was never spoken to despite sitting next to Cameron Bancroft during discussions about using sandpaper on the ball.

Cummins on Friday said he spoke to investigators and there were calls at the time for anyone with more information to come forward.