Three Men Crucified, Bosses Shrug: Sandpaper Row Returns

Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera at Newlands trying to hide sandpaper in his pants. For that, the governing body handed him a nine-month ban. Now Usman Khawaja, in an interview with Nine Newspapers about his autobiography, Sabr, says the entire squad knew about the plot, and that the three men who took the fall "got crucified."

Cricket Australia's official investigation concluded only David Warner, Steve Smith and Bancroft knew. Khawaja says otherwise. He claims he urged the whole team at the time to take collective responsibility rather than scapegoat the trio. "Obviously, it didn't work that way and those three guys got crucified," he said.

Who Got Crushed

The punishments landed hard and landed unevenly. Bancroft, the junior man holding the sandpaper, got nine months. Warner and Smith each got a year. Warner got a life ban from captaining Australia; Smith couldn't captain for two years.

The SMH opinion piece by a former bowler (Geoff Lawson per the topic brief) put the penalty scale in blunt terms. The ICC penalty for such conduct was previously five penalty runs and a ball change. After 2018, the ICC raised sanctions to six Tests or 12 ODIs. Smith was originally suspended for one match by the ICC and lost his match fee for "conduct contrary to the spirit of cricket." Bancroft received a small fine from the ICC. The piece said the ball at Newlands did not swing and was not shown to be scratched, licked or otherwise altered, and noted that former South Africa captain Faf du Plessis has said the punishment was out of proportion. It called the team assigning scapegoats rather than taking the collective rap "un-Australian" and said the "CA internal investigation was laughable."

What the Apparatus Says

Cricket Australia says it remains comfortable with the past investigation but left the door open for new information to be considered. One SMH opinion piece reported that CA is adamant there will be no fresh inquiry, that officials have been aware of the material for a while, and that the substance of Khawaja's account marries up with much of what has long been said privately in Australian cricket circles. The same piece argued pressure is on CA to reopen the investigation.

The bowling attack's camp isn't talking. Representatives for Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon declined to comment. Their last word came in 2021, after Bancroft told Donald McRae in The Guardian it was "self-explanatory" that other team members knew. The quartet's statement: "We did not know a foreign substance was taken onto the field to alter the condition of the ball until we saw the images on the big screen at Newlands."

Darren Lehmann, the coach at the time, told ABC radio: "You do know ball tampering was going on because it's been happening for 150 years." He called it "an individual case by case, to be fair," and made several references to the damage the scandal did to his mental health and others'.

Khawaja also claims Australia used sandpaper at St George's Park in Port Elizabeth, now known as Gqeberha. That contradicts Smith's words at the fateful press conference: "I can promise you that this is the first time it has happened."

Back to Work

Bancroft, 33, scored 32 off 40 balls on Saturday in Western Australia's 92-run one-day loss to England at the WACA. He wasn't made available to media to discuss Khawaja's comments. He played only two more Tests after serving his ban and recently said he was no longer as motivated to return to Tests as he once was.

His state coach, Beau Casson, offered the managerial script. "He's a grown man and a very mature guy," Casson said. "The situation was a long time ago. He's keen to move on and let his bat do the talking, and that's what we promote him to do." Casson praised Bancroft's 186 in a Shield win against South Australia and said: "We're just rapt to be able to have Cameron scoring runs for us." Bancroft plays WA against Victoria in a Sheffield Shield match at the MCG, starting Wednesday.

The SMH piece also questioned the timing of Khawaja's disclosure, after retirement and in a book, and said Warner is the big winner for having someone else "pull the trigger." It noted the claims are the last thing Cummins needed as he confronts a faltering team and a rare form trough, with a series against New Zealand coming.

Mark Taylor believes the discussion will "go round in circles." Eight years on from Newlands, the men at the top of the game's hierarchy have a simple preference: let the bat do the talking.