Michael Clarke demands 2018 ball tampering probe be reopened after Usman Khawaja claims as Cricket Australia refuses

Former Australia captain Michael Clarke called on Tuesday for Cricket Australia to reopen its official investigation into the infamous 2018 Cape Town ball tampering scandal, warning that Australian supporters cannot trust what is real after explosive new autobiography claims from former international teammate Usman Khawaja. According to BBC Sport reporting, Clarke urged current Test skipper Pat Cummins to address the controversy publicly even as Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg insisted there is no compelling reason to revisit the eight year old inquiry and fast bowler Mitchell Starc stood firmly behind the bowling attack’s long held denials.

The fresh firestorm dominating southern hemisphere cricket alongside Tuesday’s rain hit ODI series across the Tasman in New Zealand stems from Khawaja’s newly published memoir, in which the veteran opener alleged that the entire Australian team knew sandpaper was being used to alter the ball during the third Test against South Africa at Newlands in March 2018. Khawaja further alleged that sandpaper had already been used during the preceding second Test at Port Elizabeth, a claim backed on Monday by former vice captain David Warner, who called Khawaja’s account 100 percent accurate.

Back in 2018, Cricket Australia’s original integrity probe handed year long suspensions to captain Steve Smith and vice captain Warner alongside a nine month ban for opener Cameron Bancroft, while concluding that Australia’s four frontline bowlers in Cape Town, Starc, Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, and Nathan Lyon, were unaware a foreign substance had been carried onto the pitch.

Clarke questions Cummins silence and demands full Port Elizabeth accounting

Speaking on Australian radio station 2DayFM on Tuesday, Clarke, who played 394 international matches between 2004 and 2015 and captained the Test side from 2011 until retirement, argued that conflicting public accounts between banned batters and active bowlers have left an open wound across Australian sport. Clarke maintained that cricket followers had never been given the full picture in 2018 or in 2021, when Bancroft told an interviewer it was probably self explanatory whether bowlers knew, prompting the Cape Town bowling quartet to issue a joint statement denying knowledge of any foreign substance.

Clarke insisted that reopening the investigation is the only path allowing everyone involved to tell the whole truth and finally move forward, emphasizing that Khawaja’s specific claim regarding ball tampering at Port Elizabeth demands formal examination. Even more pointedly, Clarke expressed disbelief that current Test captain Cummins had not yet spoken publicly on Khawaja’s allegations.

Highlighting how profoundly Cape Town altered Australian leadership history, Clarke noted that Steve Smith lost the national captaincy over the scandal, opening the door first for Tim Paine and subsequently for Cummins in November 2021. Without the 2018 bans, Clarke argued, Smith would have remained Test skipper and neither Paine nor Cummins would have captained Australia when they did, making clarity from the current dressing room leader essential.

Todd Greenberg and Mitchell Starc reject calls to revisit 2018 findings

Before Clarke’s radio intervention raised the temperature further, Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg ruled out restaging the disciplinary process. Greenberg, who assumed the top post at Cricket Australia in March 2025 after previously leading the Australian Cricketers’ Association, told Sports Entertainment Network that while he holds huge respect for Khawaja sharing his personal recollection and intends to read the book carefully rather than reacting to headlines, the governing body remains comfortable with the 2018 investigation outcome.

Greenberg noted that every player on the 2018 South Africa tour was urged to step forward with evidence at the time and has retained that opportunity across the past eight years. Because irreconcilable recollections of the same dressing room moments now pit former teammates directly against one another, Greenberg argued that reopening hearings eight years later would achieve nothing and could never produce a single consensus narrative accepted by all sides.

Australia spearhead Mitchell Starc echoed that desire to look forward while speaking at a domestic summer launch event in Sydney on Tuesday. Expressing disappointment that an eight year old scandal was overshadowing preparations for an eagerly anticipated Australian home summer, Starc stated that he would not speak on behalf of fellow bowlers Cummins, Hazlewood, and Lyon, all four of whom remain cornerstones of Australia’s Test attack, but stressed that his own recollection has not changed from their 2021 statement.

Starc reiterated that he and his fellow bowlers were heavily grilled by investigators in 2018 and first realized sandpaper had been taken onto the field only when television cameras flashed Bancroft’s footage onto the giant stadium screen at Newlands. Addressing Khawaja’s Port Elizabeth allegation directly, Starc added that the book excerpt marked the very first time he had ever heard claims of sandpaper being used during the second Test.

Players union urges end to public vitriol after eight years of division

Attempting to cool escalating tensions between past and present teammates, the Australian Cricketers’ Association issued a measured statement acknowledging the 2018 South Africa tour as a painful low point in national sporting history while noting that Smith, Warner, and Bancroft paid an enormous and disproportionate personal price for their roles.

The players’ union defended the equal rights of retired players like Khawaja and Warner to share lived perspectives in print and of current players like Starc and Travis Head to put a traumatic chapter behind them. Warning that there are zero winners in relitigating Cape Town through media salvos and nothing can undo events from March 2018, the association called for ongoing public vitriol aimed at players on both sides of the divide to cease before the first ball of the Australian Test summer is bowled.

Why Cape Town still divides Australian cricket on the eve of a home Test summer

That Sandpapergate can still dominate national airwaves eight years and eight months after March 2018 speaks to the unique place the Baggy Green occupies in Australian public life. When television cameras caught Cameron Bancroft slipping yellow abrasive paper inside his trousers at Newlands, public outrage stretched all the way to the prime minister’s office in Canberra and triggered cultural reviews that reshaped Cricket Australia’s boardroom, coaching staff, and leadership ranks overnight.

Because the four frontline bowlers from that Cape Town eleven, Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood, and Lyon, went on to form one of the greatest Test attacks in cricket history, winning World Test Championship honors, retaining the Ashes, and lifting the fifty over World Cup under Cummins’s captaincy, any fresh claim challenging their 2018 testimony strikes directly at the modern team’s legacy. Conversely, for Warner and Khawaja, lingering perceptions that three batters bore the entire institutional punishment for dressing room ball maintenance practices have clearly remained raw across nearly a decade.

Greenberg’s firm refusal to reopen formal hearings ensures Cricket Australia will not convene new integrity tribunals or compel active Test stars to sit for fresh depositions ahead of the opening Test of the Australian summer. Yet Clarke’s pointed challenge on Tuesday morning guarantees that reporters will press Cummins directly at his next pre match media appearance, proving once again that Australian cricket’s most turbulent modern chapter refuses to stay closed.