Full Transcript for Usman, where’s the proof? Khawaja’s sandpaper bombshell unpacked

he's doing it for justice and it's the right thing to do doesn't really sit easily with a lot of people, including me. And I haven't pointed fingers at anyone. I'm still searching for what I was searching all those years ago, for us, me included, to take the blame together as a team. But also the very issue about who knew what at Newlands and also around that test match in the past. Like, they're answers that have never really been provided by anybody. I think what you'll see in the next few days is some of these bowlers. I think Mitchell Stark will be talking at a KO launch. 00:03:43 Speaker 5: That's obviously in a book. That's for someone to explain further. As far as our statement said, we weren't aware of things being taken on the field. That's where I'll leave it. As I said before, we weren't aware anything was taken on the field to be tampered with. 00:03:59 Speaker 3: We saw it on the big screen in Cape Town. 00:04:01 Speaker 5: As far as the book's concerned, I haven't read it. I probably won't read it. So that's what it was meant to elaborate on. 00:04:07 Speaker 3: I think Josh Hazlewood's due to speak at some point in the next couple of days about as well. I'm told Pat Cummins is likely to speak about this next week. A leading cricket official said to me just before coming on air, it's the gift that keeps on giving. Maybe for the journos and maybe for Penguin Australia, but not necessarily for cricket because it's, as I wrote, it's a zombie, this story just simply will not die. 00:04:32 Speaker 2: It's an interesting choice for Kawaja, isn't it? I mean, he's always positioned himself as a bit of a truth teller. He has worn his heart on his sleeve, almost kind of literally worn slogans on his shoes and so on throughout his career. It seems kind of slightly out of character for him to have remained silent all of this time. 00:04:48 Speaker 1: What do you think? 00:04:50 Speaker 3: I think that's the problem though, Claire. I think he's had ample opportunity to come forward. As I've written, as Cricket Australia have said, the door has always been open. There's also a small fact that someone from Cricket Australia pointed out to me earlier today. And that's the fact that, you know, as he said, I was sitting next to Cameron Bancroft when he had the scene paper ready to rock and roll in that test at Newlands, and I was never interviewed. Well, if Usman Khawaja is the moral crusader and he talks about the right thing to do, why didn't he stop it then? Why didn't he say then, don't do that? That's ball tampering. This doesn't sit right with me. I've talked to certain sources in Cricket Australia and also in that team who tell me, Claire, that they don't recall Usman Khawaja standing up and saying, let's all take the heat collectively together. for what's happened here with the ball tampering accusations. So, you know, there's a lot of different versions of what happened around ball tampering in that team to the one that Wolfman Kawaja and now David Warner has put forward. 00:05:56 Speaker 2: There were a lot of people saying at the time and still saying that everybody does it from, you know, school boy cricket right through to the test teams in every country. 00:06:04 Speaker 1: That this is common knowledge, whether. 00:06:05 Speaker 2: It's a chapstick or a lolly or a bit of sandpaper, which would make it sound realistic for Usman Khawaja to say, well, everybody knew. So if that is the case, that this was just sort of the normal thing to do and that the Australians were just stupid enough to get caught doing it, why would Cricket Australia have kind of covered it up so hard at the time? 00:06:24 Speaker 3: It's the dark art of all manipulation that's been going on for over a century in cricket that's been happening, as you said, at every level. God, I remember when it used to happen at C-grade level many, many, many years ago. I remember writing when this story first broke, that very fact that this is the dark arts that happen in every sport, if we're going to be serious. 00:06:47 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:06:48 Speaker 3: Sport at every level is pure. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. 00:06:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's diving in soccer or milking the. 00:06:53 Speaker 3: Or milking a penalty in rugby league or rugby union or whatever. Ball manipulation has been going on. I find it funny when people... in cricket say, oh, this is ridiculous, this is cheating, it shouldn't happen. God, if there isn't a great cricket out there that hasn't picked the scene between deliveries or overs, this is a little bit more elaborate, obviously, taking sandpaper out onto the field. But as Usman Khawaja has pointed out in his book, South Africa were doing the same thing during that series. And here's another point that I think has been lost a lot this week. It was reported at the time. There's a test in Hobart against South Africa that Australia lost in 2000. 2016 where it was very clear that South Africa were reverse swinging the ball and Australia was not and there was a clear direction from James Sutherland the CEO at the time as Steve Smith has subsequently said in interviews where it's like we don't pay you to play we pay you to win and it manifested from there so that's why it was always ridiculous that the investigation was ring fenced around day three of that Newlands test in 2018 it needed to be a bigger investigation into the culture of that side and exactly what happened whether reinvestigating that now eight years after the fact is going to make any difference whatsoever they would know but i would like to think that if they did investigate it again we could probably draw a line under this story once and for all and until they do we're not going to be able to do. 00:08:21 Speaker 6: That australians really working on the ball Trying to get that reversed. The South Africans did it so well all day yesterday. 00:08:34 Speaker 2: So let's talk about what happened on that third day. At lunchtime,

the leadership group, including Steve Smith and Dave Warner, apparently decided that they were going to do this. They sent out the young gun, Cameron Bancroft, to tamper with the ball. 00:08:46 Speaker 1: And then they were caught. It was displayed on the big screens to the crowd. 00:08:50 Speaker 6: Just put that around the big screen in the crowd. 00:08:53 Speaker 4: Absolutely, the footage is damning enough. 00:08:55 Speaker 5: You can see that he's taking something out of his pocket, using. 00:08:58 Speaker 4: It on the ball. 00:08:59 Speaker 6: And then once the message comes out, he's clearly hiding it away. When he gets approached, takes out the old sunglass cleaner. 00:09:07 Speaker 2: They were pinged immediately by the referees. Smith and Warner were immediately punished and so was Bancroft. Now fast forward to 2021. Cameron Bancroft gave an interview where he said that he felt that the bowlers knew Then the bowlers, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazelwood, Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Stark put out a statement saying that they didn't know. And that's why it's very awkward now for Pat Cummins, surely, for Usman Khawaja to be saying, well, we all knew. I mean, that means Pat Cummins, you knew, right? 00:09:33 Speaker 3: But this is where you need to be very specific. Did Pat Cummins and the bowlers know about the use of sandpaper or did they know about the broader use of working on the ball or tampering with the ball? And that's the distinction that no one's ever got to the bottom of. And I think that's the important thing that the bowlers really need to make clear at some point in the next few days or I suspect when their own books come out at. 00:09:55 Speaker 4: The end of the year. 00:09:57 Speaker 2: I mean, it's a bit cute to say, oh, I knew the best man would do something out there in the field, but I didn't really ask too many questions. 00:10:02 Speaker 1: That's pretty lame. 00:10:03 Speaker 7: I agree. 00:10:04 Speaker 3: I agree. You were all in or not. I find it also hard to believe that the bowlers who benefited most were oblivious to what the batsmen were doing to work on the ball. Again, this is going to be something that's debated and talked about until one, there's an investigation or two Everyone releases their various books or dare I say, a podcast, could be a docu-series on Netflix. 00:10:25 Speaker 1: We should get Hedley Thomas onto it. Who knew what? 00:10:27 Speaker 3: I think we should get Hedley on it for sure. If anyone can get to the bottom of it, it's Hedley. 00:10:33 Speaker 1: Someone would end up going to jail, though. That's probably not right. 00:10:35 Speaker 7: That's right. 00:10:35 Speaker 3: Well, no, no, I don't know. But I do find it a little bit, as I said, the wrongs of Newlands have never been properly investigated or exposed. And now the way that Usman's just completely thrown it out there with this book and then Dave Warner's Instagram video's from base camp at Everest. Oh, no. No, no, just muddies the waters even more. I know one thing, for sports journos like me, in between the end of the racing and the start of the cricket season, it's been manna from heaven. I'm glad we've got something to write and talk about until the actual series against New Zealand starts next month. 00:11:10 Speaker 1: Yeah, the Rugby League World Cup's too boring. 00:11:12 Speaker 3: No, that's right. 00:11:13 Speaker 2: So I remember that scene when the Australian cricketers, not long after this, were going through Lords and the members, all these sort of bloated red-faced guys, were kind of jeering and screaming and sloshing their gin and tonics. And the conversation at the time was that this is un-Australian, it's un-cricket, this is un-gentlemanly. I wonder, though, Dave Warner, you know, brings out the violins for his Instagram statement. 00:11:37 Speaker 4: Hi, everyone. It's been eight years since I've spoken on this topic. 00:11:40 Speaker 8: And Uzi, I throw my full support behind you. I thank you for what you've done. It's 100% accurate what you've said. Now everyone knows the truth. 00:11:52 Speaker 4: It's out there. 00:11:53 Speaker 2: And he's talking about how hard it's been to explain to his daughter why these photos exist of him and his wife crying at the airport and stuff. 00:12:01 Speaker 8: The last couple of days I've had been talking to my daughters and that's why it's taken me a couple of days to get this out because I've had to tell them exactly what had happened, especially my 12-year-old Ivy. 00:12:14 Speaker 4: Wanted to know why we were holding. 00:12:15 Speaker 8: Her, why there were so many cameras, why we were crying on TV. 00:12:20 Speaker 4: That was a hard thing to do. But one thing I did say is, girls, tell the truth. 00:12:29 Speaker 1: I mean, should they all just kind of man up a little bit and move on? 00:12:35 Speaker 3: You know what? There is a part of me that sort of thinks that, but as I've written this work, You know, people forget that was quite a public lynching. It was. It really was. 00:12:46 Speaker 7: I'll say two things. Firstly, that I'm deeply sorry. I love the game of cricket. I love entertaining young kids. I love kids wanting to play the great game of cricket that I love. The two other things is any time you think about making a questionable decision, think about who you're affecting you're affecting your parents and to see the way my old man's been and. 00:13:18 Speaker 4: Thanks everybody and my mum it's it hurts. 00:13:24 Speaker 7: And I just want to say I'm sorry and for the pain that I've I guess brought to Australia and the fans and the public it's it's devastating and I'm truly sorry. 00:13:41 Speaker 3: The public shaming of those three guys was, I thought it was over the top. I thought the penalty was over the top at the time. It really was. I think they deserve a right to the actual truth of what happened. They all made their way back except for Cameron. Cameron Bancroft came back for two test

matches. But Smith and Warner managed to come back and Warner managed to finish his career in stunning fashion at the SCG in his last test match and still managed to travel the world and and pick up lots of lucrative contracts on the T20 circuit. So he hasn't been terribly aggrieved. But I like Dave. This will sound weird. I love his honesty. There's a candour there and a sort of a gruffness there that I appreciate. And I think there would be plenty of cricket elites that don't like the kid from Housing Commission from Maroubra in many respects. And I've always felt that about Dave Warner. He's an unvarnished character in many ways. So I think he's got a story to tell as much as anyone. I think the fact that Uzman Khawaja has come out and said it in his book, the way that he has, I think that'll expedite the release of his own book with HarperCollins in the next 12 months. Move on? I don't know. As I said, it's a story that keeps on giving because it was never handled properly in the first place. 00:14:57 Speaker 2: Kawaja says there were two members of the team who absolutely refused to take collective responsibility to come out all together and say, we all knew what was going on. 00:15:05 Speaker 1: Who do you think that is? 00:15:07 Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know. I'm not going to throw him under the bus. But again, but this is the detail. You can't really be half pregnant on these type of allegations. You know, I've written 10 books before and a lot of them have been ghostwritten with fleeting athletes. And I've always said, if you're going to say this, you've got to say who it is. You've got to lay it out. I bought the Khawaja book this morning and there's a lot of unnamed accusations. There's a lot of vague accusations throughout his whole career. I know the claim from Usman Khawaja that The fact that Tim Payne was installed as interim captain after Steve Smith was sacked after that Newlands test and he claimed they weren't ready for a brown Australian captain. I know that has completely, well, that hasn't gone down well, as you can imagine, with the executive and the Cricket Australia board at the time. If you're going to put that out there, you need some sort of level of proof. I think those vague accusations in a book, I don't think they serve him well at all. 00:16:05 Speaker 2: It's interesting that claim, isn't it? That is something that I think many Australians would instinctively think, well, maybe you're right. These kind of, you know, bloated kind of blazer wearers, yeah, they probably didn't like you because you were brown and because you were outspoken and so on. 00:16:19 Speaker 3: Yeah, but not everyone on the Cricket Australia board are bloated blazer wearers at all. You know, there's some pretty solid, decent people who have been involved in Cricket Australia who've been you know, branded racists. If you're going to make that accusation, you need to bloody back that up. And I think that's where Usman lets himself down in a lot of ways. I'm an Usman fan. I remember interviewing Usman Khawaja. I've never actually said this story, but I interviewed Usman Khawaja before his debut in 2011. And he was great fun. He didn't take himself very seriously at all. And he was making jokes and references to the movie Team America by the makers of South Park that literally take the piss out of all those racist tropes. You know what I mean? And he was making the racist comments that have made it, you know, parroting those lines about Hans Blitz and all this type of thing, right? So he's changed from that sort of character, that knockabout character to, Someone who takes himself pretty seriously, again, that's fine. No one can underestimate the racism that he's copped during his career and life. But that doesn't mean that everything that's gone against you, even going back to last summer when he was criticised for playing golf multiple times before the first ashes test and then having back spasms and then his claim was that that was racist. Come on, Wilson. Not everything's sent through a racist lens. Sometimes facts are facts. 00:17:42 Speaker 1: Andrew Webster, thank you very much. 00:17:43 Speaker 3: Thanks, Blake. 00:17:49 Speaker 2: Andrew Webster's columns are unmissable and live now at theaustralian.com.au.