Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Usman Khawaja has revealed Cameron Bancroft told him he struggled to watch Australia’s return to South Africa, with the former Test opener still impacted by the ball-tampering scandal.
Khawaja took to social media on Sunday to defend the timing of his sandpaper-gate revelations, adamant he was doing it for the suspended trio of Bancroft, David Warner and Steve Smith.
The former opener’s claims include that Australia had used sandpaper in the Test before Bancroft was caught in Cape Town in 2018, and that members of the team were aware of it and not just the aforementioned three.
Khawaja spoke to Australia captain Pat Cummins last month to warn him that details would be revealed in his upcoming memoir Sabr, which will be released on Tuesday.
A copy of the chapter covering sandpaper-gate was also sent to Bancroft recently, so that the West Australian would not be blindsided by the revelations.
In the chapter, Khawaja alleges that sandpaper was experimented with on a ball by an Australian player in the Port Elizabeth changerooms, before Bancroft volunteered to do it on field as others asked if he was sure he was willing to.
Bancroft served a nine-month suspension from Cricket Australia following the ball-tampering saga, and has been limited to two Tests in the 2019 Ashes since.
Warner and Smith were each banned for a year, with a CA investigation determining they were the only three players with knowledge of the plan.
“Bancroft told me at length at how hard the last month was watching the team in South Africa dealing with everything,” Khawaja said in an Instagram post on Sunday.
“Davey his whole last eight years, his whole eight last years he’s had to deal with this with his family. And Smudge (Smith), he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.”
Smith did not play in Australia’s return to Cape Town after failing to overcome a highly-publicised neck injury, while Warner was on Fox Cricket’s commentary panel.
Bancroft is understood to be weighing up in coming days if he wants to speak to Khawaja’s claims in the book.
The 33-year-old managed to score a century for Western Australia during the recent Test tour, piling on 187 on the same day as the third Test in Cape Town began.
Bancroft played in a tour match against England as the furore was going into full throttle on Saturday, scoring 32 in the 50-over game.
After the match, WA coach Beau Casson praised Bancroft’s maturity in the face of the ball-tampering scandal being brought up.
“He’s a grown man and a very mature guy,” Casson said.
“He’s handled himself with distinction in that space. I don’t see it changing anytime soon.
“He’s keen to move on and let his bat do the talking, and that’s what we promote him to do.”
Bancroft had said in an interview in 2021 it was “pretty probably self-explanatory” when pressed on whether some of the bowlers knew what was happening.
That prompted a statement from Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon and Josh Hazlewood, declaring they did not know a “foreign substance” was taken onto the field or used to “alter the condition of the ball”.
