Khawaja says all Australian players knew of 2018 Cape Town ball tampering

The claim

Usman Khawaja, who retired this year after 88 Tests, says Australia used sandpaper to scuff the ball in the second Test at Port Elizabeth, before the 2018 Cape Town match in which the team was caught. In extracts of his autobiography Sabr, published in the Sydney Morning Herald, he argues that the whole squad shared responsibility, not only Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, the three players punished at the time.

Khawaja, 39, told the Sydney Morning Herald: "It was all of us. Not the batters, not the bowlers, not the staff. All of us." He says he spoke in the dressing room after the Cape Town Test, urging the team to accept collective responsibility rather than scapegoating the three players.

What he says happened

According to the extracts, discussions about roughing up the ball began in the dressing room during the second Test at Port Elizabeth, now Gqeberha. Those talks led to the discovery that sandpaper was effective, and Smith allegedly walked away, saying he did not want to know. Bancroft then allegedly volunteered to use sandpaper in South Africa's first innings in Gqeberha, where the ball swung significantly.

Khawaja sat next to Bancroft in the next Test, in Cape Town, and witnessed a conversation with a coach that led to sandpaper being used again. Television cameras picked it up. He made contemporaneous notes in his hotel room but was never interviewed as a witness in the Cricket Australia investigation.

The bowlers and Cricket Australia

In 2021, bowlers Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon issued a joint statement saying they "did not know a foreign substance was taken on to the field". Khawaja's account puts pressure on them and others to disclose what they knew.

Cricket Australia said it remained comfortable with the findings of its integrity process and that all relevant information presented to it had been properly considered. Smith was banned for a year and sacked as captain, Warner was suspended for 12 months and Bancroft received a nine-month ban. Head coach Darren Lehmann was cleared of direct involvement but resigned soon after the series.

Warner and what comes next

Warner is working on a post-playing autobiography, with no release date given. Khawaja's book is the first to write in depth about the affair from inside the squad, and it is set for publication in the week of 9 November 2026.