{"id":4017,"date":"2026-11-08T12:03:45","date_gmt":"2026-11-08T07:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=4017"},"modified":"2026-11-08T12:03:45","modified_gmt":"2026-11-08T07:03:45","slug":"khawaja-denies-throwing-teammates-under-the-bus-over-ball-tampering-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=4017","title":{"rendered":"Khawaja denies throwing teammates under the bus over ball-tampering scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Usman Khawaja on Sunday denied that he had \u201cthrown anyone under the bus\u201d, a day after an excerpt from the former Australian cricketer\u2019s autobiography \u200bclaimed the entire team had been aware of ball-tampering during \u200ca 2018 tour of South Africa.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The scandal, dubbed \u201cSandpapergate\u201d over Australia\u2019s scuffing of the ball with sandpaper in the March 2018 test in Cape Town, sparked a major integrity \u200bcrisis for Cricket Australia.<\/p>\n

However, only captain Steve Smith and batsmen David \u200bWarner and Cameron Bancroft, who was caught with the sandpaper \u2060in his pocket, were banned for their part in the scandal.<\/p>\n

In a \u200bvideo posted on Instagram, Khawaja, who released the excerpt of his autobiography<\/u><\/a> on \u200bSaturday, said he had wanted to \u201ccome clean\u201d about the incident since 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t thrown anyone under the bus,\u201d added the 39-year-old, who retired from international cricket in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guys \u200bthat are currently in the team right now and the other people \u200bthat were there on the South African tour, including me, we\u2019re not the victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese \u200cthree \u2060guys (Bancroft, Warner and Smith) took the blame for all of us, and they\u2019re the victims.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khawaja said he had spoken with the three players involved in \u201cSandpapergate\u201d, and that he had promised Warner he would share his side of \u200bthe story.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese three guys \u200bdeserve justice. And \u2060I haven\u2019t pointed fingers at anyone,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still searching for what I was searching all those years \u200bago for us \u2014 me included \u2014 to take the blame \u200btogether as \u2060a team so we can all move on from this once and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s test side returned to South Africa for the first time since 2018 \u2060last \u200bmonth and were beaten 2-1 by the hosts<\/u><\/a> in \u200bthe three-match series, which was overshadowed in part by discussions of the scandal<\/u><\/a> and the upcoming \u200brelease of Khawaja\u2019s book.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Usman Khawaja on Sunday denied that he had \u201cthrown anyone under the bus\u201d, a day after an excerpt from the former Australian cricketer\u2019s autobiography \u200bclaimed the entire team had been aware of ball-tampering during \u200ca 2018 tour of South Africa. The scandal, dubbed \u201cSandpapergate\u201d over Australia\u2019s scuffing of the ball with sandpaper in the March 2018 test in Cape Town, sparked a major integrity \u200bcrisis for Cricket Australia. However, only captain Steve Smith and batsmen David \u200bWarner and Cameron Bancroft, who was caught with the sandpaper \u2060in his pocket, were…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}