‘Stinks of cover up’: Warner claims ‘shoddy investigation’ of sandpaper-gate by Cricket Australia
FILE PHOTO: David Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft were punished after Australia was caught tampering the ball during the 2018 Test tour of South Africa. | Photo Credit: Reuters
FILE PHOTO: David Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft were punished after Australia was caught tampering the ball during the 2018 Test tour of South Africa. | Photo Credit: Reuters
David Warner on Saturday accused Cricket Australia of covering up the whole sandpaper-gate saga and doing a shoddy investigation of the events unfolded during the South Africa tour in 2018
Warner, who was one of the three players alongside Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft to be sent home after the third Test, has found his voice again ever since Usman Khawaja claimed in his autobiography that the whole team was aware about sandpaper being used to rough up the ball.
Khawaja’s revelations have brought the bowlers — Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon and Josh Hazlewood — back into conversations that the quartet knew that Australians were trying to tamper the ball.
However, Cummins and Starc in their recent press briefings have maintained that they did not know about it.
Also read | ‘Utter nonsense’: Cummins says Khawaja ‘100 per cent wrong’ on sandpaper-gate
Warner, in his recent Instagram post, claimed that the Australian board never interviewed the bowlers during the investigation.
“As far as I am aware, CA did not interview Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc or Nathan Lyon in their 2018 investigation,” he wrote.
“If that’s correct, then how can CA push the idea that the bowlers didn’t know?”
“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 the bowlers had no idea. That stinks of a cover up,” Warner said.
Responding to Warner’s accusations, CA said: “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.”
Published on Nov 14, 2026
Latest on Sportstar
Live Blog 2026-11-14T10:33:28+05:30
भारत बनाम पाकिस्तान, अंडर-19 एशिया कप फाइनल: उस्मान और कादिर चौकों की बौछार कर रहे हैं; पाक 127/1 (17)- Gurnoor Brar added to India Test squad for New Zealand series; Kuldeep released
Live Blog 2026-11-14T09:42:08+05:30
India vs Pakistan, Under-19 Asia Cup Final: Usman, Qadir dealing in boundaries; PAK 127/1 (17)
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.