Australia cricket: Usman Khawaja says entire team knew about ball-tampering scandal in South Africa in 2018

Former Australia opener Usman Khawaja has claimed that the side's entire dressing room knew about the ball-tampering incident in Cape Town in 2018.

That declaration, made by Khawaja in the Sydney Morning Herald ahead of the release of his book 'Sabr', is at odds with Cricket Australia's assertion that only Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were aware of the plot to use sandpaper on the ball in the third Test against South Africa eight years ago.

Khawaja, who retired from international duty after Australia's 4-1 Ashes thrashing of England last winter, said: "It was all of us. Not the batters, not the bowlers, not the staff. All of us."

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Captain-at-the-time Smith, Bancroft and Warner, who was found to have been the architect of the plot, all received bans after the incident, with Smith and Warner suspended for one year and Bancroft handed a nine-month sanction.

Bowlers Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon issued a joint statement in 2021 insisting they had no idea about the ball-tampering.

That came after Bancroft - who had aimed to conceal the sandpaper down his trousers during the Test in question - replied "I think it's probably self-explanatory" when asked whether the bowling attack knew about the scandal.

Khawaja: I thought the truth would have come out by now

Khawaja, who wrote in his book that ball-tampering plans were first discussed in the second Test of the 2018 series in Port Elizabeth, now Gqeberha, continued: "I don't want to be the one who comes out and talks about the truth.

"The issue is that I genuinely thought after eight years the truth would have been out by now.

"Maybe I thought Davey [Warner] would have exposed it, or someone else would have talked about it more.

"At the end of the day, I think it's the right thing to do, particularly for those three guys. And I think most of the guys in the team, at some level, will be relieved that we can finally move on.

"Even in the change rooms when I was talking to them after the game. I said: 'Take this as a team. We did this as a team. We knew what was going on. We have to take it as a team'.

"I was always of that stance. Obviously, it didn't work that way, and those three guys got crucified."

Reflecting on the first chats about the ball-tampering which led to sandpaper being seen as an "effective agent", Khawaja said: "It was at this point Smith essentially threw his hands in the air and said he didn't want to know."

The left-hander also expressed his surprise that he was never asked to give evidence despite playing in the Cape Town Test.

'Australia found humility after Sandpapergate'

Khawaja scored over 6,000 runs for Australia's Test team in 88 matches between 2011 and 2026, notching 16 hundreds and 28 fifties with a best of 232 in Sri Lanka in January 2025.

He feels good came out of 'Sandpapergate' in that the side found "humility" in the aftermath.

Khawaja added: "The best things come out of the worst times. I genuinely believe, for the Australian cricket team, the best thing that came out of Sandpaper is we found humility again.

"JL [Justin Langer] came in as coach and he was honestly probably the best coach we could've had at that time. He put humility back in the Australian cricket team. It was just lovely to see. It was beautiful.

"I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed seeing where the Australian team went from that point onwards and obviously Cummins, who ended up becoming captain, was a part of that process."