David Warner issues fresh statement on sandpaper saga, saying it ‘stinks of a cover-up’

David Warner has doubled down on his criticism of the investigation into the sandpaper saga, suggesting the bulk of Australia’s bowlers weren’t interviewed in the 2018 probe that he claims “stinks of a cover-up”.

In the latest development in a week that has seen the eight-year-old incident ignite a cricket civil war, Warner took to social media to question Cricket Australia’s position that the four main bowlers from that Cape Town Test match weren’t aware of the ball-tampering plan.

“As far as I am aware, CA did not interview Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc or Nathan Lyon in their 2018 investigation,” Warner wrote in an Instagram post.

“If that’s correct, then how can CA push the idea that the bowlers didn’t know?

“It looks like they had decided who they wanted to blame from the very beginning (and) ran a shoddy investigation to serve the purpose and now they want to maintain the false narrative that the bowlers had no idea.

“That stinks of a cover-up.”

A Cricket Australia statement on Saturday said all players were provided with the chance to be a part of the process for shedding light on what had happened in Cape Town.

“As we have stated previously, all players were given the opportunity to speak at the time of the initial investigation and have had the ability to come forward with new evidence in the eight years since,” a CA spokesperson said.

“Subsequently, CA has respected every player and former player’s right to provide their own version of events.”

Warner’s post followed his comments on Kayo Cricket in his role as an analyst on Friday, where he said Pat Cummins threw Usman Khawaja “under the bus” in his press conference that morning.

Warner’s fresh claim suggests Cummins was the lone player out of the four main bowlers from the 2018 Test to be interviewed as part of the investigation that resulted in lengthy bans for the former opener, Steve Smith and Cam Bancroft.

Cummins on Friday described Usman Khawaja’s claims in his new book Sabr that the entire team knew of the sandpaper plot as “complete and utter nonsense” and labelled the suggestions “100 per cent wrong”.

“I’ve said that consistently for the last eight years. I did not know that was happening,” Cummins said.

Saturday’s developments came as the ethics expert who ran a 2018 investigation into culture within the Australian cricket team said he had received a muted response from the team.

Dr Simon Longstaff said he was “left with a blank wall” after giving players an opportunity to come forward with information.

“Along the way (during the review) there were whispers, and I can’t put it any more strongly than that, that something else had gone on earlier and that more people had known,” Dr Longstaff said of the ball-tampering plot on Nine.

“And when we came to look into that, because I couldn’t turn a blind eye to it once the suggestion was made, I forwarded the senior people I spoke (to) with an opportunity to say, ‘well, is there something else you want to say about the whole circumstance?’

“And nobody chose to make any alteration to their statement. So I was left with a basically a blank wall.

“Some people saying one thing... but not sufficient to be able to say there needs to be a further inquiry at that time. Of course, all of that changed earlier this week with Usman Khawaja’s statements published in his book.”

Meanwhile, former Australian captain Greg Chappell has urged the past and present cricket stars to end their civil war as the events of the week continue to escalate.

“We don’t want to see Australian cricket eating itself and having a little spat within the family,” Chappell said.

“Hopefully Pat’s put a bit of a line under it and we can start getting on with the summer of cricket.

“It’ll be a distraction, but I think they’ve all had enough experience that when they walk out on the cricket field there’s only one thing they’re thinking about.”