More than eight years after the fallout of the ball-tampering saga in Cape Town, former Australian batter Usman Khawaja has claimed that the entire team was aware of the use of sandpaper, which he says was also used in the preceding Test in Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha).

Khawaja’s claims contradict a joint statement from Australia’s bowling quartet of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon in 2021 where they denied allegations of their knowledge of the ball being tampered with.

“It was all of us. Not the batters, not the bowlers, not the staff. All of us,” Khawaja told the Sydney Morning Herald, while also elaborating on it in his autobiography Sabr, due to be released soon.

After opener Cameron Bancroft was caught hiding a small piece of sandpaper down his trousers during the Cape Town Test against South Africa, captain Steve Smith publicly admitted that the “leadership group” plotted tampering with the ball. Smith and deputy David Warner were handed a 12-month ban, while Bancroft was banned for nine months. Smith was also banned from holding any leadership position in Australian cricket for a further period of 12 months, while Warner was given a lifetime captaincy ban which was later removed in 2024, following which he was named Sydney Thunder’s captain.

Khawaja said that he spoke within the dressing room for the team to take up responsibility, as opposed to Smith, Warner and Bancroft taking the fall.

“In an ideal world, I don’t want to do this,” Khawaja was quoted as saying by the aforementioned source. “I don’t want to be the one who comes out and talks about the truth. The issue is that I genuinely thought after eight years the truth would have been out by now.

“Maybe I thought Davey would have exposed it, or someone else would have talked about it more. I just didn’t think it was going to come down to this. But the longer it’s gone on for, and right from the very start, I’ve been on the train of collectively taking it.

“Even in the change rooms when I was talking to them after the game. I said, ‘Take this as a team’. We did this as a team. We knew what was going on, and we have to take it as a team, and so I was always of that stance.

“Obviously, it didn’t work that way, and those three guys got crucified.”

Khawaja said that he has opted to speak up since he thought “it’s the right thing to do”, while throwing his weight behind Smith, Warner and Bancroft who he believes have had to live with the fallout of the incident well into the years after it unfolded.

“I’ve always felt like there’s more to life than just cricket, and these guys, in some respect, deserve that justice,” Khawaja said. “And it just doesn’t feel like anyone’s going to give it to them. None of those three want to be the first to say anything. And rightly so, it will just be hearsay and ‘their word’ if they do. They needed someone else to say something.”

While Cricket Australia launched an investigation after the Test - which resulted in the sanctions handed out to the troika - Khawaja said that he was shocked at not being interviewed by the board.

“I was sitting next to Cam Bancroft that whole Test match, and I didn’t get interviewed,” Khawaja said. “I thoroughly feel that I didn’t get interviewed because of that, because they knew that I wanted to take it as a team, because they knew I was ready to tell the truth if I was interviewed.

“And I was waiting for my phone to ring. It just never rang, and then the penalties were given, and I couldn’t believe it.”

Khawaja said that he spoke to Cummins, the current Australian Test captain, ahead of the recent tour of South Africa where Australia lost the Test rubber 2-1, about his book and that he was going to open up about the ball-tampering saga in it.

The former opener, who retired from international cricket at the start of the year following the Ashes, acknowledged that these revelations “might make people’s lives difficult for a little bit of time”. But he was firm that he revealed the truth, and that it was an opportunity to put the issue to bed.

“If you read my story, if you read what I’m saying, I have numerous times said it’s us, the team. This is the team. It’s not Steve, Davey and Bangers. It’s all of us,” Khawaja said.

“At the end of the day, I still think it’s the right thing to do for particularly those three guys. And I think most of the guys in the team, at some level, will be relieved that we can finally move on.”