Australian fast bowler Mitchell Starc has said that his recollection of the events of Sandpapergate have not changed.
Speaking to media at Kayo Sports and Fox Cricket’s launch event for the Summer of the Century in Sydney on Tuesday afternoon, Starc responded to Usman Khawaja’s claim that the whole team knew of the ball tampering plot in 2018.
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“I haven’t really paid much attention to be fair,” he said.
“Obviously there’s differing opinions of eight years ago. We were heavily drilled through the process at the time and since – and I guess I won’t speak on behalf of the bowlers – but where I stand, my opinion hasn’t changed.
“My recollection hasn’t changed from what we said in 2021.”
Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon released a joint statement after Cameron Bancroft told The Guardian in 2021 that it was “self-explanatory” that the bowlers knew about the sandpaper.
Khawaja claimed that Australia had used it in the previous Test before being sprung in Cape Town.
“Yeah that’s the first I was aware of any of that taking place in PE (Port Elizabeth),” Starc said.
“I’ll leave that for said authors to explain.”
He later added: “As our statement said, we weren’t aware of things being taken on the field, that’s where I’ll leave it.”
That denial does not address Khawaja’s accusation that Aussies would usually use sandpaper before the ball was taken onto the field, but that Bancroft was eventually pushed into the mid-game act.
“We all knew that the umpire would drop the ball on the boundary as we went out onto the field. At that point, there’d be no cameras on us and the umpires would be about 100 metres ahead. We could then do whatever we wanted,” Khawaja wrote in Sabr.
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In 2021, Starc along with Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon released this statement.
“We pride ourselves on our honesty. So it’s been disappointing to see that our integrity has been questioned by some journalists and past players in recent days in regard to the Cape Town Test of 2018,” it read.
“We have already answered questions many times on this issue, but we feel compelled to put the key facts on the record again.
“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.
“And to those who, despite the absence of evidence, insist that ‘we must have known’ about the use of a foreign substance simply because we are bowlers, we say this: The umpires during that Test match, Nigel Llong and Richard Illingworth, both very respected and experienced umpires, inspected the ball after the images surfaced on the TV coverage and did not change it because there was no sign of damage.
“None of this excuses what happened on the field that day at Newlands. It was wrong and it should never have happened.
“We’ve all learned valuable lessons and we’d like to think the public can see a change for the better in terms of the way we play, the way we behave and respect the game. Our commitment to improving as people and players will continue.
“We respectfully request an end to the rumour-mongering and innuendo. It has gone on too long and it is time to move on.”