David Warner lashes ball-tampering investigation, sources say all bowlers spoken to

All four bowlers from the 2018 Cape Town Test spoke to investigators as part of the inquiry into ball tampering, the ABC understands, running counter to claims by former opening batter David Warner.

Warner wrote on social media that Cricket Australia’s investigation — which saw him and Steve Smith banned for a year, and Cameron Bancroft rubbed out for nine months — was poorly handled and had a pre-determined outcome.

“As far as I am aware, CA did not interview Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc or Nathan Lyon in their 2018 investigation. If that’s correct, then how can CA push the idea that the bowlers didn’t know?” Warner wrote.

But sources connected to the bowling group said Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc were interviewed. The other front-line bowler from Cape Town, current Test captain Pat Cummins, said during a marathon press conference on Friday that he spoke to investigators.

“They were all interviewed. [Warner’s] comments are just not true,” one source told the ABC.

The ABC also understands Tim Paine was interviewed as part of the investigation.

After Cummins’s press conference, Warner said Cummins had “thrown [Usman Khawaja] under the bus” by rejecting Khawaja’s claims that more people were responsible for sandpaper entering the field of play than Warner, Bancroft and Smith.

“The way it was handled in the first place, it was hard for us to go back and give more evidence,” Warner said on Fox Sports before Friday’s ODI between Australia and England.

“I feel like it was a botched investigation. It was a quick one to get it over and done with. Some of the questions were quite challenging in the way it was being planted on us [Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft] and we had to move on and just accept responsibility.”

And Warner has doubled down on social media.

“It looks like they had decided who they wanted to blame from the very beginning, ran a shoddy investigation to serve the purpose and now they want to maintain the false narrative that bowlers had no idea,” he wrote.

“That stinks of a cover-up.”

Cricket Australia said in response: “As we have stated previously, all players were given the opportunity to speak at the time of the initial investigation and have had the ability to come forward with new evidence in the eight years since.

“Subsequently, CA has respected every player and former players right to provide their own version of events.”

In his new book, Khawaja said he was never spoken to despite sitting next to Cameron Bancroft during discussions about using sandpaper on the ball.

Cummins on Friday said he spoke to investigators and there were calls at the time for anyone with more information to come forward.

On Tuesday, Starc was one of the first players to be asked about Khawaja’s claims and said there were “differing opinions of eight years ago”.

“We were heavily grilled through the process at the time and since,” he said.

“I won’t speak on behalf of the bowlers but, from where I stand, my opinion hasn’t changed, and my recollection hasn’t changed from what we said in 2021.”

In 2021, Bancroft implied in an interview that the bowlers likely knew what was going on.

“Obviously what I did benefits bowlers and the awareness around that, probably, is self-explanatory,” he said.

Starc, Cummins, Lyon and Hazlewood released a joint statement in responsesaying they were disappointed to have their integrity questioned.

“We did not know a foreign substance was taken onto the field to alter the condition of the ball until we saw the images on the big screen at Newlands,” they wrote five years ago.