David Warner hit back at Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins and accused him of ‘throwing Uzzi under the bus’ after Cummins refuted Usman Khawaja’s allegations that the whole Australian team were aware of ball-tampering during the Sandpapergate scandal in 2018.
Khawaja wrote about the dramatic 2018 tour of South Africa in is upcoming autobiography and alleged that the knowledge of ball-tampering - of which Australia were found guilty - was shared by the entire team and not just the three members of the squad, captain Steve Smith, vice-captain Warner and Cameron Bancroft, who were subsequently punished.
The bowling unit of the 2018 tour included current players Cummins, Josh Hazelwood, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon who all released a statement at the time denying that they were aware of ‘foreign substances’ being taken onto the field.
Khawaja’s allegations reignited the conversations over Sandpapergate and who knew what to such an extent that Cummins held a press conference on Friday morning and answered questions from the media.
“I was genuinely shocked this week when I found that Usman admitted that he told Cam to be careful when using sandpaper,” said Cummins.
“...when he says we all knew, if by that he means we knew sandpaper was going out on the field, he is 100 per cent wrong. I have said that consistently for the last eight years, I did not know that was happening...he says that I and others were architects of a scheme to ball-tamper with sandpaper. That is complete and utter nonsense.”
Warner, who was on punditry duty for Australia’s first ODI against England on Friday, hit back at Cummins’ words.
“I thought Pat Cummins was very well prepared this morning. I still stick by Uzzi and what he’s written in that book. It is the truth and I really, really support him,” Warner revealed.
“I actually feel for him at the moment. I feel that the captain today actually threw Uzzi under the bus and I’m very, very disappointed by that. A
“All three of us have paid a big price in this and 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. So when other people talk about being affected by it there’s nothing worse for me, Steve and Cameron who have to walk out there every single day and we cop abuse.”
When asked if he was in favour of re-opening an investigation into Sandpapergate, Warner replied: “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.
“It felt like it was a botched investigation. It was a one to get it over and done with, some of the questions were quite challenging in a way it was being planted on us and then we had to move on and just accept responsibility for three of us which we ultimately did.”
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