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Deputy editor, ESPNcricinfo- Deputy Editor Andrew arrived at ESPNcricinfo via Manchester and Cape Town, after finding the assistant editor at a weak moment as he watched England's batting collapse in the Newlands Test. Andrew began his cricket writing as a freelance covering Lancashire during 2004 when they were relegated in the County Championship. In fact, they were top of the table when he began reporting on them but things went dramatically downhill. He likes to let people know that he is a supporter of county cricket, a fact his colleagues will testify to and bemoan in equal quantities.
Australia's Test and ODI captain Pat Cummins held a remarkable 68-minute press conference to answer questions following the revelations made by Usman Khawaja in his recently released autobiography Sabr. Here are the main takeaways:
Khawaja '100% wrong' on sandpaper knowledge
Cummins delivered a statement before answering questions, saying Khawaja was "100% wrong" that everyone in the team knew about the sandpaper plot during the Test tour of South Africa in 2018. He said it was "complete and utter nonsense" and that he was " genuinely shocked" when he found out Khawaja had admitted he knew that Bancroft had taken sandpaper onto the field.
"I was genuinely shocked this week when I found out that Usman admitted that he told Cam [Bancroft] to be careful when using sandpaper," Cummins said. "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. And, you know, the Usman that [I know] would have stopped that from happening there and then."
Cummins' relationship with Khawaja beyond repair?
Cummins spoke with emotion about the toll of Khawaja's allegations and said he was now grappling with his 15-year relationship with Khawaja.
"Usman is a friend, but I think the way he's kind of been quite casual and flippant with people's lives and Australian cricket, I don't think that's okay, and I don't think that's what friends do," he said.
Cummins said he had spoken to Khawaja this week but would not reveal details of the conversation. He said he had skimmed the book but was unsure whether he would read it in full, and that he had wrestled with the idea of Khawaja revealing other personal stories about team-mates from inside the dressing room.
Admitted Australia had an 'ugly underbelly' in 2018
While there is major disagreement between Cummins and Khawaja around the sandpaper incident in 2018, one aspect they are aligned on. They agree the culture of that Australian team was unacceptable and something that Cummins and his team-mates, including Khawaja, have worked hard to rectify in the years since.
"[It was] a team that at that stage I think had a win-at-all-costs mentality and an ugly underbelly, and there was too many silos within the team," Cummins said in his statement. "Traits that I hope that everyone's seen, and I tried very hard to eradicate for the last six years as captain."
He later said: "I hadn't played a lot of cricket up until that stage. I was in and out, played a little bit of white-ball cricket and hadn't played a lot of Test cricket. But my memories of coming back into that side was there were parts that I didn't really think was okay.
"I thought the way we acted on the field was quite abrasive. Like some of the ways we spoke to umpires [and] 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."
Ball tampering in Shield cricket
Cummins said the only time he had seen ball tampering on the field was during a Sheffield Shield match. He was vague on when, saying he hadn't played many games in the competition so too much information would allow it to be whittled down, but said it involved a "senior" player who had used a bottle top.
"I was looking at it and going, wow, that's not okay," he said. "It was dealt with. The umpires knew it as well. They called him out and said, you've got to stop that right now. It was dealt with. That's the only time I've seen, yeah, something illegal out there."
He later detailed other methods he had heard about but reiterated he'd never seen them used by a team he had played in.
"I'd heard superglue on branding [of clothing]," he said. "So you'd shine the ball there. I'd heard zippers. I'd heard superglue on keepers' gloves. I'd heard nail polish, layers and layers of nail polish. I bite my fingers, so I'd be terrible, but growing it out [and] make it super hard
"I'd heard, obviously, the Murray Mints one. I'd heard some claims from a long time ago that sandpaper was actually taped in between fingers and you leave a little patch. That was a long time ago."
Racism claims over captaincy 'the most serious'
In his book, Khawaja states his belief that he wasn't given the interim Australia captaincy following the ball-tampering scandal because "they weren't ready for a brown Australian cricket captain." Cummins' response to that claim was extremely strong.
"I think of all the things that I've read this week, I think that's actually the most serious," he said. "To think that the job that I hold is quarantined from people based on their skin colour, that's a pretty big statement. I think if you're going to say that, I think you've got to have some evidence.
"I just don't think that's the case. So again, I agree with Uzzy on a lot of things. But when I disagree, I'll tell him that I disagree and him saying that if you're an Australian captain, you have to be a certain skin colour, I couldn't disagree any more."
Towards the end of the press conference, Cummins was asked if he had seen any racist behaviour during his time in the Australian team. His initial response was to say, "I'd rather not go into that. I think that's maybe a story for Uzzy," but he then elaborated when pressed on the significance of the matter.
"You know, some of the language, I think we've all evolved a little bit," he said. "There might have been times where the person felt like they might have been, you know, prejudiced against, or it didn't make them feel good. But, again, that's for Uzzy. There's nothing very, very racist that I've seen in the past, and there's definitely nothing that I've seen in the last eight years."
Punishments for Sandpapergate were "heavy-handed"
Cummins believes the original punishments handed down to David Warner, Steven Smith and Cameron Bancroft were "way too heavy-handed" but added that even if Khawaja's intentions were sound to seek some redress for the trio, to suggest everyone else knew was a "huge extrapolation."
The theme of the severity of the bans was revisited again during the press conference, and Cummins offered broader thoughts on how they came in an ugly series with references to the stairwell incident in Durban, Nathan Lyon dropping the ball on AB de Villiers (which Khawaja writes he admonished Lyon for), and Kagiso Rabada's shoulder tap on Smith and his subsequent ban that was overturned.
"Like, it was just a crazy series," Cummins said. "I'm very glad we haven't seen a series like that since. And it [ball tampering] was also quite prevalent. You hear stories of other teams doing it and when there were instances of people getting caught, it was a slap on the wrist, it was a small fine, demerit points, whatever.
"So I think the whole scale got a little bit lost. And, yeah, it's my personal opinion, but I think their bans were way over the top."