Australian captain Pat Cummins has confirmed he has chatted with Usman Khawaja about his upcoming autobiography but said he is not concerned about any revelations his former teammate will make about the infamous Sandpapergate series.
The retired left-hander is a close mate of David Warner, who was suspended for a year and issued with a lifetime captaincy ban for his role in the 2018 saga, and was among those who believed the responsibility for the debacle should have been handled as a shared responsibility.
Watch Australia’s Tour of South Africa Live & Exclusive on Fox Cricket, available on Kayo Sports.
At stake is a key question as to whether any other Australians knew of the ball-tampering plans outside of former skipper Steve Smith, Warner and Cameron Bancroft, who were all banned by Cricket Australia for their role in the affair.
The bowling group led by Cummins has twice issued statements strongly denying they had any knowledge of the ball tampering that unfolded in the Cape Town Test in 2018, with the Australian captain saying on Thursday they had answered “a million questions” on the topic.
Cummins’ INCREDIBLE Test Debut at 18! | 16:40
“Uz gave me a buzz a few weeks back that he is releasing a book a few weeks ago. He didn’t go into too much detail, just basically gave me the heada up that he is doing a book and, as always, no worries,” he said.
“Tell your story. It’s fine. It’s obviously a long time ago and all the investigations, everything was done back then and we answered every question a million times.
“It was dealt with then and all I can say is that as a group, we have moved on and we are very happy with the last eight to nine years how we have been as a group and evolved and obviously my focus is on captaining the cricket team.”
MORE TO COME