David Warner has further fanned the flames on Australian cricket’s civil war as he claimed three of the bowlers who played in the third Test against South Africa in 2018 were not interviewed as part of a “shoddy” investigation into the sandpaper scandal.
The former Australia vice-captain said the ball tampering investigation “stinks of a cover up”, as he claimed on social media that the trio weren’t interviewed by Cricket Australia in the wake of Cameron Bancroft being spotted handling sandpaper on the field in Cape Town. The three players were part of a bowling quartet with Pat Cummins at the time.
“As far as l am aware, CA did not interview Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc or Nathan Lyon in their 2018 investigation,” Warner posted on Instagram on Saturday.
“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 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.”
Warner made the claim a day after he said Cummins had thrown Usman Khawaja “under the bus” when the current Test captain fired back at his former teammate in a marathon press conference earlier on Friday.
CA has backed its investigation at the time and said each player still has an opportunity to share their version of events from the tour of South Africa in 2018.
Warner, Bancroft and Steve Smith were the only players sanctioned after a CA investigation found the trio had prior knowledge of the scheme to use sandpaper as a ball tampering agent in Cape Town.
“As we have stated previously, all players were given the opportunity to speak at the time of the initial investigation and have had the ability to come forward with new evidence in the eight years since,” a CA spokesperson said.
“Subsequently, CA has respected every player and former players right to provide their own version of events.”
The controversy was reignited by Khawaja’s allegations in his memoir Sabr, and during interviews to promote the book.
In a wide-ranging press conference that lasted more than an hour, Cummins said that he “did not know” that sandpaper was being taken on the field at Newlands.
“When he says ‘we all knew’, if by that he means that we knew sandpaper was going out on the field he’s 100% wrong,” Cummins said on Friday. “I’ve said that consistently for the last eight years. I did not know that was happening. But, I think Usman actually says things that are actually far more serious than that.
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“He says that I and others were architects of a scheme to ball tamper with sandpaper. That’s complete and utter nonsense. I was genuinely shocked this week when I found out that Usman admitted that he told Cam [Bancroft] to be careful when using sandpaper.”
Warner hit back just hours after Cummins spoke to media at Cricket New South Wales headquarters in Sydney, when speaking on Kayo Cricket during the build up to the first one-day international between Australia and England in Perth.
The former Australia opener said he would “stick by Uzzy and what he’s written in that book”.
“It’s the truth and I really, really support him,” Warner said on Friday. “I actually feel for him at the moment. I actually feel that the captain today actually threw Uzzy under the bus, and I’m very, very disappointed about that.
“All three of us [Warner, Bancroft and Smith] have paid a big price in this. I hadn’t spoken about it in eight years. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to live with these consequences daily and we’ve been served a life punishment.
“It’s been very difficult, because the way that it was handled in the first place, it was hard for us to go back and actually give more evidence. I felt like it was a botched investigation. It was a quick one to get it over and done with.”
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