David Warner accuses Cricket Australia of ball-tampering cover-up

Former Australian opener David Warner has labelled Cricket Australia’s handling of the 2018 ball-tampering scandal a “cover-up”. Writing on Instagram this Saturday, the former vice-captain criticised the organisation for what he described as a “shoddy investigation” into the “Sandpapergate” incident that occurred during a Test series in Cape Town, South Africa.

The controversy was reignited this week following the release of an autobiography by batsman Usman Khawaja, who alleged that the entire team was aware of the plot to alter the condition of the ball using sandpaper. A Cricket Australia inquiry originally concluded that only then-captain Steve Smith, Warner and Cameron Bancroft were involved, resulting in all three being sent home from South Africa in disgrace and handed lengthy bans.

Questioning the integrity of the original probe, Warner stated: “As far as I am aware, CA did not interview Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc or Nathan Lyon in their 2018 investigation.” He added: “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.”

In 2021, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon publicly denied any knowledge of the plan. On Friday, current Test captain Cummins held a news conference to address Khawaja’s claims, labelling them “100 percent wrong” and confirming he had been interviewed during the investigation. Warner subsequently accused Cummins of throwing his close friend Khawaja “under the bus”.

While Starc reiterated this week that “we weren’t aware of things being taken on the field”, Hazlewood and Lyon have not commented. Cricket Australia has ruled out reopening the case, with a spokesperson stating on Saturday: “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.”