'Complete and utter nonsense' - Cummins hits back at Khawaja's sandpaper claims

Pat Cummins, the Australian captain, has described Usman Khawaja’s allegations on the ball tampering incident of 2018 as ‘complete and utter nonsense’. Khawaja had claimed that everyone in the team knew of the use of sandpaper in the Cape Town Test of 2018.

The allegations that David Warner then called ‘100 percent accurate’ has been dismissed by Cummins as ‘100 per cent wrong’.

Addressing the allegations in a 69-minute press conference at the Cricket Central in Sydney, Cummins said, “I've taken a bit of time to respond to Usman's allegations. I've been trying to understand exactly what those allegations have been, that's why it's taken me a few days. When he says we all knew, if by that he means that we knew sandpaper was going out on the field, he's 100 per cent wrong. 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. 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 [Cameron Bancroft] to be careful when using sandpaper. That's not the Usman that I know. It's not the Usman that I think, or that has been part of a team that's helped rebuild this Australian cricket culture over the last eight years, and you know the Usman that would have stopped that from happening there and then.

“Usman's a friend, but friends aren't casual with each other's lives and reputations. In his book, Uzzy has been casual with my lives and the lives of many others, and I think Australian cricket. I support his right to tell a story 100 per cent. I'm really glad that he feels like he can, but we have to be accountable for the things that we say and do.”