Former Australian opener Usman Khawaja has made a big revelation regarding the Sandpaper Gate scandal. He has said that the entire Australian team was involved in ball tampering against South Africa. He said that not only the players but also the support staff were involved. Khwaja has made many revelations related to this incident in his new book 'Sabr'. Till now, whenever the sandpaper scandal is mentioned, Steve Smith and David Warner are targeted the most. Khawaja said that David Warner has been criticized the most in the last 8 years. He admitted that it was not easy to remain silent even after all this, but Warner endured everything silently.
'Sandpaper Gate' is counted among the most shameful controversies of Australian cricket. In 2018, the four-Test series was tied at 1-1. The third Test was being played in Cape Town. On the third day of the match, South Africa were in a strong position in the second innings. During this time the Australian players planned to tamper with the ball. After this, young player Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera rubbing the ball with sandpaper. Its purpose was to help reverse swing the ball. Initially Bancroft had said that yellow tape was used, but investigation confirmed the use of sandpaper. For this, Steve Smith and David Warner were banned from international cricket for one year. Bancroft had to face a ban for 9 months.
'Everyone was involved in ball tampering'
Usman Khawaja has given an interview to 'The Sydney Morning Herald' regarding his new book 'Sabr'. In this he has made many revelations regarding the Sandpaper Gate scandal. Khawaja said, 'This (ball tampering) was done by all of us. Not just the batsmen, not just the bowlers and not just the support staff, but we all were involved in it.
Khawaja said he did not want to speak publicly on the matter. He hoped that the truth would come out after eight years. “I didn't want to do this in an ideal situation,” he said. I didn't want to be that person who would come out and talk about the truth. The problem is that I really thought the truth would come out until eight years later. Maybe I thought that David Warner would tell everything about this or someone else would talk openly about it. I didn't think it would come to this.
'David Warner was targeted'
Usman Khawaja told that after the match, in the dressing room, he had asked his fellow players to take responsibility for this matter as a whole team. He said, 'Even in the dressing room, when I was talking to them after the match, I told them to accept it as a team. We did it as a team. We knew what was happening. We have to take responsibility for this as a team. My stance has always been this. Obviously, this did not happen and those three players were heavily criticized.
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Referring to David Warner, Khawaja said that he had to face continuous criticism in the last eight years. He said, 'I have seen David repeatedly targeted in the last eight years. Despite all this, it was not easy to remain silent and say nothing. For this one has to be a very strong person.
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Smith had said- I don't know anything about this
Khawaja told in his book that during the second Test against South Africa in 2018, there was a discussion in the dressing room about ball tampering. According to him, at that time Steve Smith had distanced himself from this discussion. Khawaja wrote, 'At this point Smith almost threw up his hands and said he did not want to know anything about it.' After this, during the third Test of the series in Cape Town, Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera rubbing sandpaper on the ball.