Just not cricket: will sandpapergate tear Aussies apart again?

The “stench around ‘sandpapergate’ is as overpowering now as it was” eight years ago, said The i Paper.

Australian batter Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera during a Test match against South Africa in Cape Town in 2018 trying to rough up the ball with sandpaper he did in his trousers. Bancroft, captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner received suspensions for their part in one of the biggest sporting scandals of recent years.

It is once again leading the news Down Under. In his autobiography published this week, Usman Khawaja, the Australian batter who retired in January, says the whole team knew about the tactic and it had been used before they were caught. Warner has since come out in support of Khawaja, saying his recollections were “100% accurate”.

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Cricket Australia has said it will not reopen its inquiry, having completed a three-day investigation at the time. Khawaja claims he was not interviewed during that period.

Bowlers’ claims ‘ludicrous’

Cricket Australia’s decision not to reopen the inquiry is not only “sad” and “predictable”, but demonstrates “exactly why a new investigation is needed”, said Robert Craddock in The Australian. There is “enormous public interest” in “the most notorious event in Australian cricket this century”. There are clear, conflicting views: this whole chapter “needs a proper full stop”.

“So far, so much stalemate,” said BBC Sport. The latest revelations have “done little to shift views that were entrenched” already. Australian cricket is in “sandpaper limbo, a halfway house full of historical scandal, innuendo and unanswered questions”.

Had Khawaja spoken up at the time, his career would have disappeared faster than “that bit of sandpaper disappeared down Bancroft’s pants”, said Zachary Gates on Nine. Khawaja’s version of events “smells like the truth”. It seems “incredibly unlikely” that he would do “untold damage” to his relationships with former team-mates by making false claims. And the idea that the bowlers, as they continue to claim, had no knowledge of ball tampering is “ludicrous”.

Eight years on, it’s “hard to see how many lessons have been learned”, said ABC. It’s the public who have been most hurt: they care less about the “whodunnit and more about the irreparable breach of trust” they feel. The “wounds that remain stem from a feeling of betrayal”.

‘Taint an entire generation’

“Apologies for the crude analogy but for Australian cricket this is the unflushable turd,” said Stocks in The i Paper. Current Test captain Pat Cummins has kept quiet so far, but he has also come under pressure for his recent performances. “Could this tip him over the edge?”

Khawaja’s allegations, “whether true or not, promise to taint an entire generation of Australian cricketers”. Looking ahead to the Ashes in England next year, the “soundtrack of the summer” promises to be home fans chanting: “Same old Aussies, always cheating”.

Perhaps there is another “unpalatable” scenario for why the case hasn’t been reopened, said BBC Sport. Australia’s last two captains “lost the job in disgrace” – Smith for sandpapergate, and his successor, Tim Paine, for a “sexting” scandal. Perhaps Cricket Australia has “no desire to open the door for fear of what might lie behind it”. Sandpaper, however, is the “stench Australian cricket cannot shake”.