South Africa vs Australia: Pat Cummins speaks to Usman Khawaja about autobiography

Pat Cummins has spoken to Usman Khawaja about his former team-mate’s upcoming autobiography, but the Australia captain said he has no concerns about potential sandpapergate revelations.

On Friday, Australia will begin their first Test series in South Africa since the ball-tampering scandal erupted in Cape Town in 2018.

At the time, captain Steve Smith, vice-captain David Warner and batter Cameron Bancroft were banned for their part in the plot.

Since then, the four Australia bowlers who played in that match, including Cummins, have denied they had any prior knowledge of the plan to cheat.

The quartet, who released a joint statement about the episode in 2021, are once again set to be united in the first Test against South Africa in Durban.

Khawaja played in all four Tests in 2018 and retired from international cricket in January. His autobiography will be released in November.

“Uz gave me a buzz a few weeks back that he is releasing a book,” said Cummins. “He didn’t go into too much detail, just basically gave me the heads-up that he is doing a book and, as always, no worries.

“Tell your story. It’s fine. It’s obviously a long time ago and all the investigations, everything was done back then and we answered every question a million times.

“It was dealt with then and all I can say is that as a group, we have moved on and we are very happy with the last eight to nine years how we have been as a group and evolved and obviously my focus is on captaining the cricket team.”

At the time of the ball-tampering controversy, Smith explained it was devised by the “leadership group” of the Australian team on the third day of the third Test in Cape Town. Bancroft was caught rubbing sandpaper on the ball the same day.

While Smith, Warner and Bancroft – all batters – were punished, there was never an explanation of how bowlers Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon did not notice a change in the state of the ball.

In a 2021 interview with the Guardian, Bancroft was asked if the bowlers knew and replied: “It’s pretty probably self-explanatory.”