Cricket Australia Will Not Reopen 2018 Ball-Tampering Probe

Cricket Australia has said it will not reopen its investigation into the 2018 ball-tampering scandal. The move follows an accusation from former opener David Warner that the board covered up what happened.

Ball-tampering means altering the ball illegally to help the bowlers. In 2018, Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were all handed lengthy bans after Cricket Australia's inquiry into the plan to use sandpaper on the ball during the Test series in South Africa. Bancroft was the player seen with sandpaper on the field during the Cape Town Test.

Warner now says the board did not interview Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc or Nathan Lyon during that inquiry. BBC Sport reported his claim that the process was a cover-up.

Cricket Australia's response is that all players were given the chance to speak when the investigation began. It says they have also had the ability to come forward with new evidence in the eight years since.

The debate was reignited by Usman Khawaja, who claimed in his autobiography that the entire Australia squad knew about the sandpaper plan. Khawaja says he was never interviewed, even though he sat next to Bancroft in the dressing room.

Pat Cummins, who has captained Australia's Test side since 2021, said he was interviewed during the investigation. He called the suggestion that the whole team knew about the scheme "100% wrong" and "utter nonsense". Hazlewood, Starc, Lyon and Cummins have all maintained that they did not know about the plan to tamper with the ball.

For fans, the key difference is between what the board is willing to do and what players are saying in public. Cricket Australia has closed the inquiry. Warner and Khawaja are keeping the questions alive through interviews and a book, and the players named in the claims are denying any knowledge. Whether that public argument leads to any further official action is not yet clear.