David Warner has lashed Cricket Australia's investigation of ball tampering in 2018. (Getty Images/Gallo: Ashley Vlotman)
David Warner has lashed Cricket Australia's investigation of ball tampering in 2018. (Getty Images/Gallo: Ashley Vlotman)
David Warner says Cricket Australia's investigation into the ball tampering perpetrated by the team, which saw him banned for a year, was poorly handled and had a pre-determined outcome.
Immediately after Pat Cummins's marathon press conference on Friday, Warner said the current Australia Test captain had "thrown [Usman Khawaja] under the bus".
Cummins rejected Khawaja's claims that more people were responsible for sandpaper entering the field of play during the 2018 Cape Town Test than Warner, Cameron Bancroft and Steve Smith, who received lengthy suspensions after an investigation.
Warner has expanded his criticism of the investigation on social media, saying it was not comprehensive and was therefore unreliable.
"As far as I am aware, CA did not interview Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc or Nathan Lyon in their 2018 investigation. If that's correct, then how can CA push the idea that the bowlers didn't know?" Warner wrote.
"It looks like they had decided who they wanted to blame from the very beginning, ran a shoddy investigation to serve the purpose and now they want to maintain the false narrative that bowlers had no idea.
It is yet another barb from Warner, who has backed Khawaja's accounts of events from 2018 and repeatedly labelled the investigation "botched".
"The way it was handled in the first place, it was hard for us to go back and give more evidence," he said on Fox Sports before Friday's ODI between Australia and England.
Usman Khawaja (right) said it wasn't fair for three players to bear all the responsibility for ball tampering. (Getty Images: Nick Potts/PA Images)
Usman Khawaja (right) said it wasn't fair for three players to bear all the responsibility for ball tampering. (Getty Images: Nick Potts/PA Images)
"I feel like it was a botched investigation. It was a quick one to get it over and done with. Some of the questions were quite challenging in the way it was being planted on us [Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft] and we had to move on and just accept responsibility."
Cricket Australia said in response: "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.
"Subsequently, CA has respected every player and former players right to provide their own version of events."
In his new book, Khawaja said he was never spoken to despite sitting next to Cameron Bancroft during discussions about using sandpaper on the ball.
Cummins on Friday said he spoke to investigators and there were calls at the time for anyone with more information to come forward.
On Tuesday, Starc was one of the first players to be asked about Khawaja's claims and said there were "differing opinions of eight years ago".
"We were heavily grilled through the process at the time and since," he said.
"I won't speak on behalf of the bowlers but, from where I stand, my opinion hasn't changed, and my recollection hasn't changed from what we said in 2021."
In 2021, Bancroft implied in an interview that the bowlers likely knew what was going on.
"Obviously what I did benefits bowlers and the awareness around that, probably, is self-explanatory," he said.
Starc, Cummins, Lyon and Hazlewood released a joint statement in response, saying they were disappointed to have their integrity questioned.
"We did not know a foreign substance was taken onto the field to alter the condition of the ball until we saw the images on the big screen at Newlands," they wrote five years ago.