Sandpaper row: Pat Cummins opens up on legal action against Usman Khawaja

Usman Khawaja and Pat Cummins (Image credit: Agencies)

NEW DELHI: Australia captain Pat Cummins has hit back at former teammate Usman Khawaja over his claims about the 2018 ball-tampering scandal, calling them "100% wrong" and "utter nonsense". Cummins faced several questions about Khawaja's autobiography during a fiery press conference in Sydney.

He was asked whether he would take legal action against his former teammate, whether he had spoken to Khawaja and if Cricket Australia should reopen the investigation into the sandpaper scandal.The Australia captain addressed all these issues and also explained why he felt Khawaja's claims were irresponsible.One being asked if he will take legal action against his former teammate, Cummins confirmed that he had spoken to Khawaja during the week but did not share details of their conversation.

He admitted that the allegations had left him thinking about how his long-standing friendship with Khawaja would be affected.Cummins also revealed that he had been advised that some of the claims in the book were "probably defamatory". However, he made it clear that he would not take legal action."You've got to move on," he said. "It's been eight years … You got to draw the line at some point. I won't be doing that."Cummins spoke about his 15-year association with Khawaja and said the former Australia opener had been a good friend to him throughout his career.

However, he felt the allegations were serious because they affected not just the players but also their families and reputations."I've played 15 years, my debut for New South Wales and with Australia, Usman was right there, and he's been awesome to me, and he's a friend," Cummins said."But this is people's real lives, and this is serious. I saw [my wife] Becky on the news yesterday. Like this affects not only people but people's families, and I'm one of the lesser ones.

Maybe this week I'm right there. But talking eight years ago, like it was traumatic for those guys, for all of us, for Australian cricket, for fans. So to bring it up so flippantly and casually, I think it's irresponsible. So yeah, they're all things I'm grappling with at the moment," he said.

Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg had said earlier in the week that the governing body would not reopen the investigation into the 2018 ball-tampering scandal.When asked whether the investigation should be conducted again, Cummins said the decision was up to Cricket Australia. However, he felt the original investigation was conducted in the right way."That's up to CA," Cummins said."Part of why I think this is still lingering after eight years is there's a lot of context around this, which is hard to explain and hard to articulate, and that's what I want to do today. But there's a very proper way to do things and an improper [way], and I think that investigation was the proper way to do it. Everyone was asked in the circumstances, with a game very quickly after, so yeah, that's for CA. I think you could maybe argue whether the judgments were fair, but what can you do? I got asked all the questions, and answered them all fairly," he said.