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Former Australia National Cricket Team opening batter David Warner has reignited the famous 2018 Sandpapergate controversy by raising serious questions about Cricket Australia's (CA) investigation into the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa.
The famous 2018 Sandpapergate controversy has returned to the headlines after Usman Khawaja made fresh claims in his recently released biography, Sabr, suggesting that the entire Australian team knew about the plan to use sandpaper on the ball against South Africa in Cape Town.
David Warner accuses Cricket Australia of cover-up in 2018 Sandpapergate Scandal
The ball-tampering scandal has now created fresh tension among Australia's former and current players. David Warner has now questioned Cricket Australia's investigation and believes the governing body may have tried to protect some players while putting the blame on others.
Warner raised the issue through a post on his personal Instagram account. He claimed that Cricket Australia did not interview Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, and Nathan Lyon during its 2018 investigation.
He questioned how the board could confidently say that the bowlers had no knowledge of the plan if they were not even questioned properly. Read Also: "You have to have evidence”: Pat Cummins hits back at Usman Khawaja’s racism allegation.
David Warner questions CA for not interviewing Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon
The former opener also suggested that Cricket Australia had already decided who should take responsibility for the incident. He believes the investigation was not handled properly and that the board wanted to maintain a story that the bowlers knew nothing about the ball-tampering plan.
David Warner said in a statement on Instagram, "As far as I am aware, CA did not interview Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, or Nathan Lyon in their 2018 investigation. If that’s correct, then how can CA push the idea that the bowlers didn’t know?
It looks like they had decided who they wanted to blame from the very beginning and ran a shoddy investigation to serve the purpose, and now they want to maintain the false narrative that the bowlers had no idea. That stinks of a cover-up."
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David Warner disappointed with Pat Cummins’ statement on 2018 Ball-Tampering scandal
David Warner’s statement came after Australian Test captain Pat Cummins rejected Usman Khawaja's claims during a press conference on November 12. Cummins strongly denied knowing anything about sandpaper being brought onto the field to change the condition of the ball in Cape Town.
The former left-handed batter criticized Cummins for putting Khawaja in a difficult position instead of supporting his former teammate. Read Also: Cricket Australia breaks silence after David Warner questions 2018 ball-tampering investigation.
The Sandpapergate controversy was unfolded during the Cape Town Test against South Africa in 2018, when Cameron Bancroft was caught using sandpaper on the ball. The incident became one of the biggest scandals in Australian cricket history.
What Cummins, Warner and other Australian players SAID in 2021
In 2021, Pat Cummins, David Warner, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, and Nathan Lyon released a joint statement after Cameron Bancroft's interview with The Guardian. They denied knowing that a foreign substance had been taken onto the field to tamper with the ball.
They also said they only became aware of the sandpaper incident after seeing the television footage on the big screen in Cape Town. They further pointed out that the umpires, Nigel Llong and Richard Illingworth, had inspected the ball after the incident became public but did not replace it because they found no visible damage.
The Australian stars had said, “None of this excuses what happened on the field that day at Newlands. It was wrong and it should never have happened.”
