Australia captain Pat Cummins has firmly rejected Usman Khawaja's claims that the whole Australian team knew about the 2018 ball-tampering plot, describing the suggestion that he helped plan it as "complete and utter nonsense".

Cummins spoke at length at Cricket Central in Sydney on Friday, 13 November, in a press conference that lasted more than an hour. It was his first public response to the allegations made in Khawaja's autobiography, Sabr, which was released earlier this week and has reopened one of the most damaging episodes in Australian cricket.

What Cummins said

Khawaja's book alleges that the entire Australian team knew sandpaper was being used to alter the ball during the 2018 tour of South Africa, and that sandpaper was also used in the second Test at Gqeberha before Cameron Bancroft was caught with it in Cape Town.

Cummins, who played in that series, said the claim was wrong. "When he says we all knew, if by that he means that we knew sandpaper was going out on the field, he's 100 per cent wrong," he said. "I've said that consistently for the last eight years. I did not know that was happening."

He went further, taking issue with the suggestion that he was one of the people behind the plan. "He says that I and others were architects of a scheme to ball-tamper with sandpaper. That's complete and utter nonsense," Cummins said.

Shock at Khawaja's admission

Cummins said he had taken several days to read and understand the full extent of the allegations before responding, and that he had spoken to Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg before facing the media.

He also said he was surprised by one detail in particular: Khawaja's admission that he had told Bancroft to be careful when using the sandpaper in Cape Town. "I was genuinely shocked this week when I found out that Usman admitted that he told Cam to be careful when using sandpaper," Cummins said.

The captain said Khawaja remained a friend, but added that friends were not casual with each other's lives and reputations. He also addressed the claim that sandpaper had been used on the boundary edge at the start of a session in Gqeberha, saying that was news to him.

Background to the scandal

The 2018 incident took place during the third Test against South Africa at Newlands in Cape Town in March 2018, when Bancroft was caught on camera using sandpaper on the ball. Only three players were punished: captain Steve Smith, vice-captain David Warner and Bancroft.

In 2021, Cummins joined fellow bowlers Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon in a joint statement denying that they knew a foreign substance had been taken onto the field. Starc said this week that the Gqeberha claim was the first he had heard of it, while Warner has backed Khawaja's account. Cricket Australia has ruled out a new investigation.

No legal action planned

Despite the strength of his language, Cummins said he would not take legal action against his former team-mate. He said he had been advised during the week that some of the claims were probably defamatory, but added: "I won't be doing that. You've got to move on. It's been eight years. You got to draw the line at some point."

Cummins, who was rested from the white-ball series against England starting on Friday in Perth, said he did not want to talk about the matter again after the press conference. "I'll stay here until you have no more questions. I don't want to talk about this again after today," he told reporters.