Update, November 12, 2026, 10:18 AM IST: Cricket Australia chairman David Boon has backed Pat Cummins’ continued leadership amid the renewed ball-tampering allegations. Reuters reported Boon’s comments to The Australian that CA had full confidence in the Test captain. Boon also reiterated the board’s position against reopening the case. That support is not a new investigation finding or a resolution of the conflicting accounts.
Cummins has separately said he plans to speak to reporters in Sydney on Friday, November 13, after taking time to understand the allegations. ABC reported his proposed time as 9:30 AM AEDT at Cricket NSW’s headquarters, while noting that Cricket Australia had not yet officially confirmed the time. The planned appearance is not itself his substantive response to Khawaja’s claims.
Reuters report on Boon’s backing; ABC report on Cummins’ planned media appearance. The original report below covers Starc’s earlier denial and CA’s decision not to reopen the investigation.
Mitchell Starc has denied knowing about the sandpaper plan in the 2018 Cape Town Test, as Cricket Australia ruled out reopening its investigation despite fresh allegations in Usman Khawaja’s memoir.
The two developments on Tuesday, November 10, leave Australian cricket facing sharply conflicting accounts of the scandal, but no new inquiry. Starc’s response is a denial of prior knowledge, not a new finding about what the wider team knew.
What Starc said
According to the Guardian’s report of his comments, Starc said he was unaware of sandpaper being used either in Cape Town or in the preceding Test.
He maintained the position set out in the bowling group’s 2021 statement: they learned that a foreign substance had been taken onto the field when images appeared on the big screen at Newlands.
Starc also said he had not read Khawaja’s book and probably would not. His response therefore addressed the allegations put to him, rather than offering a review of the memoir.
Why Cricket Australia will not reopen the case
CA chief executive Todd Greenberg told SEN that the board saw no compelling reason to revisit the investigation. Cricket Australia’s report said he had spoken to several members of the 2018 touring team following Khawaja’s account.
Greenberg said those accounts remained inconsistent and that he did not believe a version accepted by everyone could be reached. He said CA remained comfortable with the original investigation’s outcome, including after considering Khawaja’s claims.
The allegations and the established outcome
Khawaja’s memoir alleges wider awareness of ball tampering within the team and claims sandpaper was used in the Test before Cape Town. David Warner has backed Khawaja’s account. Those are attributed claims, disputed by Starc, rather than conclusions reached by a fresh investigation.
The established disciplinary outcome remains the sanctions imposed on Cameron Bancroft, Steve Smith and Warner after the 2018 incident. All three later returned to Australia’s Test side.
The distinction matters: CA’s refusal to reopen the case does not settle every disputed account, while the new allegations do not by themselves establish wider culpability. For now, the governing body’s position is unchanged and Starc has publicly restated his denial.
Archive photo: Mitchell Starc bowling against West Indies at Perth Stadium on December 2, 2022, not the 2018 Cape Town Test or Tuesday’s comments. Photo: Calistemon, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized and compressed to WebP; adapted image shared under the same license.
