Pat Cummins’ friendship with Usman Khawaja becomes latest sandpapergate victim

Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins and Usman Khawaja have been friends for 15 years, but their relationship has become the latest victim of sandpaper-gate.

In an extraordinary one-hour press conference on Friday in Sydney, Cummins responded to his former teammates’ bombshell claims that he and the entire team knew about plans to cheat using sandpaper during the 2018 Test tour of South Africa.

Cummins stood true to his word on Friday and took every question thrown his way.

He denied ever being a knowing part of any ball-tampering plans in the Test team.

But perhaps his most damning comments were about Khawaja and show there may be no going back for their friendship.

“Usman and I are friends, but friends aren’t casual with each other’s lives or reputations. In his book, Uzzy has been casual with my life and the lives of many others, and, I think, Australian cricket,” Cummins said.

“I don’t know what’s taken Usman so long . . . there’s been some allegations this week that you have to respond to.

“I know Uz, he’s not naive. He knew this was going to be a hot topic. To have statements such as ‘we all knew’ — well, we all knew about what? For me, that’s very casual.”

He also called Khawaja’s reaction to further questioning and the details of his claims “flippant”.

Khawaja retired last summer at the end of Australia’s successful home Ashes defence against England and said he didn’t make his claims earlier because he didn’t want to “go to war” with his teammates.

However, his book has sparked an Australian cricket civil war, as David Warner, who copped a lengthy ban and was labelled a ringleader of sandpapergate, backed his close friend Khawaja’s account.

Warner also called Cummins out for throwing Khawaja “under the bus”.

“I still stick by Uzzy and what he’s written in that book, because it is the truth, and I really, really support him,” Warner said on Fox Cricket.

“I actually feel for him at the moment. I actually feel that today, the captain threw Uzzy under the bus, and I’m very, very disappointed about that.

“All three of us have paid a big price in this thing. I hadn’t spoken about it in eight years, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to live with these consequences daily. We’ve been served a life punishment.”