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Australia National Cricket Team captain Pat Cummins has lashed out at his former teammate Usman Khawaja's claims about the 2018 ball-tampering scandal in South Africa. Pat Cummins has rejected the allegations and called them “100% wrong” and “utter nonsense."
The star fast bowler faced several questions about Khawaja's autobiography. During a heated press conference in Sydney. However, Cummins made it clear that he would not take legal action against Khawaja, but the claims had hurt him and questioned his long friendship with the former opener.
Pat Cummins refuses to take legal action against Usman Khawaja
Cummins confirmed that he had spoken to Usman Khawaja during the week but did not reveal what they discussed. The Australian captain also said that he had received legal advice suggesting that some claims in the book could be "defamatory."
Despite this, the Australian captain has decided not to take the matter to court. He believes that it is time to move on, especially as the ball-tampering scandal happened eight years ago.
Read Also: Pat Cummins breaks silence on Usman Khawaja's Sandpapergate claims, calls allegations 'complete nonsense'.
Cummins also spoke about his 15-year friendship with Khawaja. He revealed that Khawaja had been with him since his early days in New South Wales and had always been a good friend. However, Usman’s recent allegations have dented their relationship.
As reported by the Times of India, Pat Cummins said, "You've got to move on. It's been eight years… You've got to draw the line at some point. I won't be doing that. I've played 15 years, my debut for New South Wales and with Australia. Usman was right there, and he's been awesome to me, and he's a friend.”
Pat Cummins gets emotional over ball-tampering scandal, says Usman Khawaja's claims hurt families
Pat Cummins explained that the 2018 ball-tampering scandal was a very painful period for Australian cricket. The Australian captain believes bringing up such a serious matter casually after so many years is irresponsible, as the scandal did not affect only the players but their families also.
Cummins feels that the incident had a deep impact on everyone involved, including the players, their families, Australian cricket, and the fans. He made it clear that the matter was much more serious than how it was being presented in Khawaja's book.
The Australia captain admitted that he was still dealing with the situation and thinking about how the latest claims could affect his personal friendship with Khawaja.
Cummins explained, “But this is people's real lives, and this is serious. I saw [my wife] Becky on the news yesterday. Like this affects not only people but also people's families, and I'm one of the lesser ones. Maybe this week I'm right there.
But talking about eight years ago, like it was traumatic for those guys, for all of us, for Australian cricket, and for fans. So, to bring it up so flippantly and casually, I think it's irresponsible. So yeah, they're all things I'm grappling with at the moment.”
Read Also: Pat Cummins admits witnessing ball-tampering: "He took a bottle cap out in the field".
Pat Cummins backs Cricket Australia's original ball-tampering investigation
Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg had already confirmed that the governing body had no plans to reopen the 2018 ball-tampering investigation. Cummins left this call to CA. He added, “Part of why I think this is still lingering after eight years is there's a lot of context around this, which is hard to explain and hard to articulate, and that's what I want to do today.
But there's a very proper way to do things and an improper [way], and I think that investigation was the proper way to do it. Everyone was asked in the circumstances, with a game very quickly after, so yeah, that's for CA.”
