Pat Cummins unperturbed by potential new disclosures on ball-tampering scandal in Usman Khawaja's autobiography 'Sabr'

Australia Test captain Pat Cummins said he was unfazed about the chances of potentially new revelations on the infamous ball-tampering scandal in his former teammate Usman Khawaja's about to be published autobiography, Sabr.

Khawaja's autobiography is due to come out in public after the conclusion of the three-match Test series between South Africa and Australia, on November 10. Cummins confirmed he received a call from Khawaja a few weeks ago and they discussed the contents of the latter's autobiography. However, the Aussie skipper maintained that his team had already moved on from the incident and "answered every question a million times" in the eight-and-a-half years since.

"Yeah, Uz [Usman Khawaja] gave me a buzz a few weeks back, [saying] that he's releasing a book," Cummins was quoted as saying by Cricinfo. "He didn't go back into too much detail. He just basically gave me a heads-up that he's doing a book. As always, [my response was], 'No worries, you can tell your story. That's fine.'"

When insisted further to reveal more details from his conversation with Khawaja, Cummins said: "I'm not too sure. You'll need to ask him. It was obviously a long time ago. All the investigations and everything was done back then. I answered every question a million times. It was dealt with then.

"All I can say is [that] as a group, we've moved on. [I am] very happy with the last eight or nine years, how we've been as a group and evolved, and obviously my focus is on captaining the cricket team."

Both Cummins and Khawaja were a part of Australia's playing XI in the infamous Cape Town Test which rocked their side to the core. Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera rubbing sandpaper on the ball to scuff it up and was handed a nine-month ban.

Then Australia captain Steven Smith and vice-captain David Warner were made to step down and were handed one-year bans each. Then head coach Darren Lehmann took moral responsibility and resigned from his position.

Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Starc, all part of that Test, have denied any involvement in the Sandpapergate. They also issued a joint statement in 2021, urging an end to rumour-mongering after Bancroft, in one of his interviews, suggested they probably knew of it.