Sydney, Nov 13 (IANS) Australia Test captain Pat Cummins hit back at Usman Khawaja’s explosive tampering claims, labeling them as ‘complete and utter nonsense’ in a fiery press conference here on Friday.

Cummins, who has been criticised for remaining silent since Khawaja dropped a bombshell in his memoir, finally broke his silence over the bombshell ball-tampering claims made by Usman Khawaja, holding a 70-minute press conference at Cricket NSW’s Silverwater headquarters on Friday.

"I’ll stay here until you have no more questions. I don’t want to talk about this again after today," said the 33-year-old who was playing his 13th Test when the Cape Town fiasco occurred in 2018.

Eight years after one of Australian cricket's most infamous incidents, Usman Khawaja claimed in his memoir "Sabr" that the entire Australian team knew about the ball-tampering attempts and argued that Bancroft, Smith, and David Warner should not have been punished alone.

"When he says we all knew, if that he means wknewew sandpaper was going out on the field, he's 100% wrong," Cummins told reporters.

"I said that consistently for the last eight years. I did not know that was happening. But I think Usman actually says things that are far more serious than that.

"He says that I and others were architects of a scheme to ball tamper with sandpaper. That's complete and utter nonsense," he said.

He further said, "I was genuinely shocked this week when I found out that Usman admitted that he told Cam to be careful when using sandpaper (in Cape Town).

"That’s not the Usman that I know. It’s not the Usman that has been part of a team that’s helped rebuild the Australian cricket culture over the last eight years. The Usman that would have stopped that from happening there and then."

He added about their friendship. "Usman’s a friend, but friends aren’t casual with each other’s lives and reputations. In his book, Uzzie has been casual with my life, and the lives of many others, and I think Australian cricket.

"… This really affects Australian cricket. The way that he’s presented his story. I think he’s done that in a very casual manner, and it affects a lot of people. That’s what I’m grappling with at the moment because I don’t think it’s okay.

"… Usman is a friend, but I think the way he’s kind of been quite casual and flippant with people’s lives in Australian cricket, I don’t think that’s okay, and I don’t think that’s what friends do.

"I support his right to tell a story 100%. I'm really glad that he feels like he can, but we have to be accountable for the things that we say and do."

Cummins did stated that the culture of that 2018 team “had a win at all costs mentality, had an ugly underbelly, and there was too many silos within the team."

"My memories of coming back into that side was there was parts that I didn’t really think was okay," said Cummins, who had been plagued by injuries and limited to white-ball cricket at international level until 2017 before establishing himself as a regular in the Test side.

"I thought the way we acted on the field was quite abrasive. Didn’t like some of the way we spoke to umpires, the opposition. I think there was a bit of an arrogance and a bit of an ugliness at times that just didn’t really sit well with me as a young guy.

"And now that I’m captain, I’ve spent a lot of time making sure that that’s not the case with this current Aussie team, and I think we’ve been absolutely brilliant since 2018," he added.

Khawaja also claimed that Australia had also used the object on the ball in the Test match in Port Elizabeth prior to the Cape Town Test.

Cummins, however, dismissed it also, saying it had been "news to me" that Australia had used sandpaper on the ball in the second Test against South Africa in 2018 in Port Elizabeth (now Gqberha) on the edge of the field at the start of a session, as Khawaja alleged.

"That was news to me this week," Cummins said. "I had no idea. Even chatting with a couple of guys, that was a revelation to us. That was one of the things that really surprised me because that doesn't happen anymore.

"The umpires give the ball out to you in the middle, so I don't remember that. I remember growing up, used to watch for the umpire dropping the ball, but I genuinely don't remember that being the case. I don't know where that stopped. So that was a revelation to me this week."

Cummins said the only time he had witnessed illegal tampering in a match he was playing in on was in the Sheffield Shield.

"It was a batter, it was a senior player – I won’t mention him – but he took a bottle cap out on the field. That was the one time I’ve seen it on the field,” revealed Cummins.

“I was looking, going, ‘Wow, that’s not okay.’ It was dealt with, the umpires knew it as well. They called him out and said, ‘You got to stop that right now’. That’s the only time I’ve seen something illegal out there."

Cummins said it was "up to Cricket Australia whether that another investigation into the 2018 affair was worthwhile.

But, Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg earlier this week said that the organisation would not re-open the probe.

"Part of why I think this is still lingering after eight years is there’s a lot of context around this, which is hard to explain and hard to articulate, and that’s what I want to do today," Cummins said.

"But there’s a very proper way to do things and an improper (way), and I think that investigation was the proper way to do it. Everyone was asked in the circumstances with a game very quickly after (the fourth Test in Johannesburg)," Cummins said.

--IANS

bc/