Pat Cummins press conference live updates: Australian cricket captain speaks about Usman Khawaja’s ‘sandpapergate’ claims

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:

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:

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:

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