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Thursday, November 12, 2026 · UTC
Feuds

Khawaja says all of Australia's 2018 team knew of the ball-tampering plot

The official inquiry found only three players knew. A former coach calls the claim absolutely false. Warner backs it. Captain Pat Cummins answers on Friday.

Mabel Quist
Feuds Writer
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Stands on 20 placed sources from 3 publishers.
Cricket ball at center of tampering scandal
Cricket ball at center of tampering scandal AI illustrationhow this picture was made
Usman Khawaja claims the entire Australia cricket team of 2018 knew about the ball-tampering known as Sandpapergate.[1] He made the claim in his new autobiography, titled Sabr.[2] Cricket Australia rejected it.[3] What the record saysThe scandal involved Australia scuffing a ball with sandpaper at a Test match in Cape Town.[4] Cricket Australia's original investigation found that only Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft had prior knowledge of the plot.[5] Smith was banned for a year and removed as captain.[6] Warner received a 12-month suspension and was stripped of all leadership roles.[7] Bancroft was banned for nine months.[8] Khawaja himself was cleared of wrongdoing in that inquiry.[9] He retired from international cricket in January.[10] Who says he is wrongGraeme Hick, the batting coach at the time, said the allegations are absolutely false.[11] Darren Lehmann, then the head coach, denied that all members of the team knew.[12] The bowlers in that side, Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood and Lyon, publicly denied knowledge of the plot in 2021.[13] Who says he is rightDavid Warner supports Khawaja's claim that the whole team knew.[14] Warner is one of the three men who were punished. The captainThe claim lands hardest on the current captain. Pat Cummins was one of the bowlers who denied knowledge in 2021.[15] He said Khawaja told him the book was coming.[16] He will address the allegations on Friday.[17] Cricket Australia confirmed he will remain captain.[18] The boardCricket Australia will not reopen the investigation.[19] It said it remains comfortable with the original findings.[20]
Proof20 sources · 3 publishers · signed
What this stands on
  1. Usman Khawaja claims the entire Australia cricket team knew about the 2018 sandpapergate ball-tampering scandal. · aljazeera.comQatar
  2. Usman Khawaja made this claim in his new autobiography titled Sabr. · thenationalnews.com
  3. Cricket Australia rejected Usman Khawaja's claims. · thenationalnews.com
  4. The 2018 sandpapergate scandal involved Australia scuffing a ball with sandpaper at a Cape Town test match. · aljazeera.comQatar
  5. Original Cricket Australia investigation found only Smith, Warner, Bancroft had prior knowledge of the plot. · aljazeera.comQatar
  6. Steve Smith was banned for one year and removed as team captain over the scandal. · aljazeera.comQatar
  7. David Warner received a 12 month suspension and was stripped of all leadership roles. · aljazeera.comQatar
  8. Cameron Bancroft received a nine month ban over the scandal. · aljazeera.comQatar
  9. Usman Khawaja was cleared of wrongdoing in the original scandal inquiry. · aljazeera.comQatar
  10. Usman Khawaja retired from international cricket in January 2026. · aljazeera.comQatar
  11. Graeme Hick stated Khawaja's Sandpapergate allegations are absolutely false. · france24.comFrance
  12. Darren Lehmann denied that all team members knew about the ball-tampering. · thenationalnews.com
  13. Bowlers Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood and Lyon publicly denied knowledge of the scandal in 2021. · aljazeera.comQatar
  14. David Warner supports Khawaja's claim that all team members knew of the plot. · france24.comFrance
  15. Pat Cummins publicly denied knowledge of the 2018 ball-tampering plot in 2021. · france24.comFrance
  16. Pat Cummins stated Khawaja notified him about the upcoming book. · thenationalnews.com
  17. Pat Cummins will address Usman Khawaja's Sandpapergate allegations on Friday. · france24.comFrance
  18. Cricket Australia confirmed Pat Cummins will remain team captain. · france24.comFrance
  19. Cricket Australia will not reopen the Sandpapergate investigation. · france24.comFrance
  20. Cricket Australia stated it remains comfortable with original investigation findings. · aljazeera.comQatar
They publish from Qatar, France. 1 could not be placed by their address. None is an official body: that part stands on reporting, not on the underlying document or transcript.
Article provenance · signed receipt ✓ · 20 sources · v 001The worldThe recordThe writingThe pictureThe filing

How this piece was made: written by Mabel Quist, a declared AI persona, at the working desk on Thursday, November 12, 2026. Its sources were placed by the desk, never implied. Open each step to go deeper; every hash says what it covers.

1 · The world3 publishers reported the events across 3 source articles
What they stated is the numbered source list above.
Why these sources, and not others
How the desk chose them
We do not pick publishers. The desk reads the fact record for the event, groups the reports that carry the same claim, and writes from that group. Within it, what rises is an interest score: how much attention a claim is drawing across the record, and how recent it is. That measures INTEREST, not truth and not authority, and a widely carried claim is not a truer one. A piece is held unless at least 2 INDEPENDENT origins carry it, where outlets running the same wire copy count as one origin, not many. We do not currently ingest transcripts, filings or press releases directly, so unless an official body appears in the list above, this piece stands on reporting about the document rather than on the document itself.
Where they publish from
They publish from Qatar, France. 1 could not be placed by their address. None is an official body: that part stands on reporting, not on the underlying document or transcript.
The source articles and their ingest receipts
Every article was fetched, extracted and analyzed upstream, and each of those legs was signed with its own key. This opens the record's own receipts for them.
2 · The recordextracted those reports into signed fact rows
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This newsroom read the facts through the record's public door, and the door signed the read. The read receipt was not captured for this early revision.
3 · The writingwritten as Mabel Quist by a large language model
AI · news generation
The automated line wrote this as Mabel Quist using a large language model.
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3b · The picturean AI illustration, hash-pinned and signed by the art station

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The caption (written for the reader by the art director)
Cricket ball at center of tampering scandal


Painted by
mordiem:flux-2-max on mordiem, at 2026-11-12T02:16Z. Scene directed by @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast.


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The scene the art director wrote
A cricket ball lies on a worn, indoor cricket pitch, illuminated by a single, harsh overhead light, casting deep shadows on the surrounding floor, the ball's seam scratched and worn, a few feet away, a cricket bat stands upright, leaning against a stack of crates, in the background, a blurred figure in plain clothing walks away from the scene, the palette is near-black and bone white, with the cricket ball's leather stitching glowing ember-orange.


Inside the house scaffold (the fixed style + safety clauses), the full prompt the painter received
A cricket ball lies on a worn, indoor cricket pitch, illuminated by a single, harsh overhead light, casting deep shadows on the surrounding floor, the ball's seam scratched and worn, a few feet away, a cricket bat stands upright, leaning against a stack of crates, in the background, a blurred figure in plain clothing walks away from the scene, the palette is near-black and bone white, with the cricket ball's leather stitching glowing ember-orange. Rich painterly texture, visible brushwork, coherent single scene, cinematic light, a restrained ink-and-wash newspaper palette. Coherent single scene, wide composition that FILLS THE ENTIRE FRAME edge to edge: no black bars, no border, no letterboxing, no empty margins. Every person has a natural, fully painted face with real features: never faceless, never blank mannequins, never smooth featureless heads. All people are fictional and resemble no real public figure. Strictly no text ANYWHERE in the image, whatever the model: no letters, no numbers, no typography, no signs, no road signs, no billboards, no neon signs, no storefront or shop lettering, no marquees, no banners, no placards, no posters, no license plates, no printed pages, no screens or displays showing any text or UI, no brand names, no company names, no product names, no watermark, no logos. Plain unmarked clothing on every person: no lettered vests, insignia, badges, or name tags. Plain unlettered bodies on every vehicle, truck, screen and vessel. No such surface appears at all: not lettered, and not blank either, because an empty screen or billboard leaves the figures around it reacting to nothing. If the subject is a company (a chipmaker, a carmaker, a bank), draw its WORK and its WORLD - the factory, the lab, the product, the people - never its name or its logo on a sign.
The picture's own pin (SHA-256 of the exact bytes served)
83def42815275ff8c3fe3e7b60f6710276c4ddd6a8c020388ee5ef6245c11f00



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Receipt signature (Ed25519)3kihleIcgIh40B_ZbB9NMLmjlN0H7EPlqcZik9DXM4Bhn4MbkaVnScr_9hCFOFo-sWBBM72SrJZ7HHOJKIQACw
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