Pat Cummins has faced up to questions about Usman Khawaja’s bombshell sandpaper revelations in an extraordinary hour-long press conference in Sydney on Friday.
Here are the five biggest questions and answers as he hit back at Khawaja’s claims the entire squad new about the ball-tampering plot.
Cummins’ introduction
“When he says ‘we all knew’, if by that he means that we knew sandpaper was going out on the field, he is 100 per cent wrong,” Cummins said.
“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 I and others were architects of scheme to ball tamper with sandpaper. That’s complete and utter nonsense.”
Q: You’re playing in a game of cricket and the ball has obviously been altered. Did you think to yourself: ‘How is the ball looking like this?’
“It’s a good question. At that stage, even the umpires had a look. We didn’t know it had been altered with sandpaper, but reverse swing is very normal. Balls get roughened up every time we play, whether that’s from a foreign object or something that is completely legal and part of the game, sometimes it’s hard to know.
“But out there in the field, I did not see anything on the ball.”
Q: Did you know there was a project to tamper the ball in that Australian cricket team, because there was a lot of pressure on those guys to get that ball to reverse swing?
“Yeah, you’re right, there was a lot of pressure around reverse swing back in that series and sometimes Test cricket then.
“Did I know sandpaper was going to be taken out onto the field? No never.
Did you know it was ever going to be used?
“Not out on the field, no.
“We can talk about sandpaper if you want, it’s a very normal thing around a dressing room.
“To then take the leap to say ‘we’re going to use this to affect the playing ball out in the middle’, no, I was not aware.
“There was no masterplan around using illegal methods. I think that’s maybe that hasn’t been spoken about enough. People assume you go from very legal methods to suddenly taking sandpaper and there must have been some huge masterplan.
“The truth is that is not the case . . . that’s one of the reasons I really want to talk through because context and details matter around this. There’s no grand plan, there’s no team meeting, there’s no bowlers saying ‘this is what must happen’.
Q: Have you seen ball tampering at any level of the game you’ve played in?
“I saw it once, I saw it in a shield game some time before that South Africa tour. He was a batter, he was a senior player — I won’t mention him — but he took a bottle-cap out on the field and that was the one time I’ve seen it on the field and I went ‘wow, that’s not OK’.
“It was dealt with, the umpires knew it at the time, they called him out and said ‘you’ve got to stop that right now’. It was dealt with.
“That’s the only time I’ve seen anything illegal out there”.
Q: Usman Khawaja says he wanted to raise it to own it as a team … do you agree with that account?
“I don’t remember any conversation about collective responsibility. I don’t remember any team meeting where he stood up and said ‘let’s all own this as a team’.
“I definitely don’t remember that and I have spoken to quite a few other people and exactly the same, trying to piece it all together, no one remembers a team meeting where someone stood up and said ‘we have got to all own this’.
Q: Are you comfortable with the review into the incident at the time and if you weren’t comfortable, did you raise anything about it?
“I got asked to be part of that review. There were some people that got specifically asked, I think it was the bowlers and I can’t really remember who else.
“And then I remember specifically a couple of times saying, if anyone has different accounts, or anyone has information they would like to share, please come forward and do that.
“I did my interview, I was totally truthful. I have been very consistent since then at that event until now. Nothing has changed.
“I actually even spoke to Todd (Greenberg, Cricket Australia CEO) today. He said ‘I have read all the investigations, guys have been very, very consistent this whole time’.
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