Cricket Australia rules out a fresh sandpaper inquiry after Khawaja's claims

Cricket Australia will not reopen its investigation into the 2018 ball-tampering scandal, with chief executive Todd Greenberg saying the board sees no compelling reason to revisit it

Greenberg closed the door on a fresh inquiry on Tuesday, days after Usman Khawaja wrote that knowledge of the plan to scuff the ball in Cape Town went well beyond the three players who were punished for it.

"We don't see any compelling reason to open the investigation or revisit this again," Greenberg told SEN radio. He said he would consider what Khawaja had written, but did not believe a second process would settle anything. "I don't think there's anything that can be gained from that."

The intervention came a day after David Warner, one of the three players sanctioned in 2018, publicly backed Khawaja's account.

No compelling reason to revisit it

Cricket Australia's original investigation concluded that only Steve Smith, Warner and Cameron Bancroft had prior knowledge of the plan to use sandpaper on the ball during the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town.

Smith was banned for 12 months and removed as captain, Warner was suspended for the same period and barred permanently from any leadership role, and Bancroft was banned for nine months.

Greenberg said the board remained comfortable with that outcome on the information it had received, and that the players he had spoken to held very different views from the ones set out in Khawaja's book.

What Khawaja wrote

Khawaja, who retired this year after 88 Tests, describes in his autobiography Sabr, published on Tuesday, open and lighthearted squad discussions on the 2018 tour of South Africa about scuffing the ball, sandpaper included.

"It was all of us. Not the batters, not the bowlers, not the staff. All of us," he told the Sydney Morning Herald at the weekend.

He has also said he was never interviewed during the investigation, despite sitting beside Bancroft throughout the Cape Town Test.

Warner backs his former opening partner

Warner, who has said little publicly about the affair in the eight years since, wrote on Instagram on Monday that Khawaja's version was correct. "It's 100 percent accurate what you've said. Now everyone knows the truth," he wrote.

He called the 2018 process rushed and botched, and pointed to the same gap Khawaja had identified. "Uzzi was sitting next to Cameron Bancroft. Uzzi was not interviewed. How is that a thorough investigation? It baffles me," he wrote.

Warner framed it as unfinished business rather than a grievance. "This isn't about reopening old wounds. It's about acknowledging that some wounds never properly healed," he wrote.

The dressing room holds its line

In 2021, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon all publicly denied any prior knowledge of the plan, and former head coach Darren Lehmann has rejected the idea that it was widely known among the players. Cummins, now Australia's Test captain, has said the matter was dealt with at the time.

Scott Boland, speaking in Melbourne on Monday, had no light to shed on it. "I don't know what the 'dark arts' are. You probably have to ask Usman for that," he said. "From my point of view, I haven't really seen anything untoward."

Former Test batter Nic Maddinson was sharper, noting that "it's that time of year, isn't it, where Christmas comes along and people have books to sell, so things come out".

A scandal that will not settle

Each of the eight years since Cape Town has produced another round of claim and denial, but Warner's endorsement is the first time one of the three sanctioned players has supported the wider account.

Greenberg's position leaves the 2018 findings as the governing body's formal record of what happened in Cape Town, with everything added since standing outside it.

Khawaja, meanwhile, has rejected the suggestion that the timing was commercial, saying he does not need the money.

Khawaja's book reached the shelves on Tuesday, and Cricket Australia's answer to it is that the case is closed.