Mitchell Starc has rejected Usman Khawaja's claim that the whole Australian team knew about the 2018 sandpaper ball-tampering plan, insisting his recollection has not changed since the bowlers' joint statement in 2021. Speaking in Sydney on Tuesday, the fast bowler said he had not read Khawaja's new book, Sabr, and did not know a foreign substance had been taken onto the field in Cape Town.

Starc became the first current player to respond publicly to the fresh claims, which have reopened one of the most damaging episodes in Australian cricket eight years after the Cape Town Test.

What Starc said in Sydney

Starc spoke to the media at the Kayo Sports and Fox Cricket season launch in Sydney on Tuesday afternoon, as Fox Sports reported.

"I haven't really paid much attention to it to be fair," Starc said. "Obviously there's differing opinions of eight years ago. We were heavily grilled through the process at the time and since - and I guess I won't speak on behalf of the bowlers - but where I stand, my opinion hasn't changed."

"My recollection hasn't changed from what we said in 2021," he added.

Starc repeated the core of that 2021 position several times during the appearance. "As far as our statement said, we weren't aware of sandpaper being taken on the field," he said. "We weren't aware it was taken on the field to be tampered with. We saw it on the big screen in Cape Town."

The Port Elizabeth claim

Khawaja's book also claims that Australia used sandpaper in the Test before Cape Town, the second Test of the 2018 series in Port Elizabeth. Starc said that was news to him.

"Yeah that's the first I was aware of any of that taking place in PE (Port Elizabeth)," he said. "I'll leave that for said authors to explain."

On the book itself, Starc was equally direct. "As far as the book's concerned, I haven't read it and probably won't read it, so that's for Usman to elaborate on," he said, according to TNT Sports.

What Khawaja claimed

Khawaja claims in Sabr that the plan to use sandpaper on the ball in the Cape Town Test was known to the entire team, and that his pleas for the whole squad to take collective blame fell on deaf ears. In the 2018 scandal, Cameron Bancroft was caught using sandpaper to rough up one side of the ball to generate reverse swing. Captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner were found to be involved in the plot, and all three were banned: 12 months for Smith and Warner, and nine months for Bancroft, with Smith stripped of the captaincy.

Warner has backed Khawaja's account, calling it "100% accurate" and thanking his former team-mate for sharing the truth. Khawaja, speaking on ABC's 7.30 on Tuesday night, said he was not trying to single anyone out and declined to answer directly when asked whether Pat Cummins had prior knowledge of the sandpaper being used. He said he did not believe the bans handed to Smith, Warner and Bancroft were appropriate.

Khawaja's publisher, Penguin, confirmed on Wednesday that he would no longer give television and radio interviews about the book, although the book tour itself is still going ahead with adjustments.

The 2021 bowlers' statement

In 2021, Starc joined fellow bowlers Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon in releasing a joint statement after Bancroft told The Guardian it was "self-explanatory" that the bowlers knew about the sandpaper. The statement said: "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."

It also noted that umpires Nigel Llong and Richard Illingworth inspected the ball after the images surfaced on television and did not change it because there was no sign of damage. The bowlers added that none of that excused what happened on the field at Newlands, saying: "It was wrong and it should never have happened."

Cricket Australia will not reopen the case

Cricket Australia has no intention of reopening its investigation. Chief executive Todd Greenberg said on Tuesday that there was no compelling reason to revisit the matter, adding that the board was comfortable with the outcome of the original investigation and that Khawaja's version of events was inconsistent with what others had said.

Starc sounded keen to move on, saying it was disappointing that the saga was dominating discussion heading into an exciting summer, and that the current group had changed a lot since 2018. For now, the divide is clear: Khawaja says the whole team knew, Warner backs him, Starc says his recollection has not changed, and Cricket Australia says the case is closed.