Pat Cummins has indicated he is untroubled by the possibility that Usman Khawaja's forthcoming autobiography will revisit the ball-tampering scandal that engulfed Australian cricket in 2018. The captain confirmed that Khawaja had contacted him beforehand to discuss the book, which will become the first memoir from any Australian player who participated in that infamous Cape Town Test.
Khawaja's autobiography, titled Sabr, is scheduled for release on November 10, 2026, arriving just days after Australia concludes its first Test tour of South Africa since the scandal. According to reports from the tour, Khawaja had also briefed Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg about the book's contents before the series began.
The extent to which Khawaja will elaborate on the ball-tampering incident remains uncertain. However, Khawaja reportedly met Cummins over coffee in Brisbane to discuss what the book would reveal, suggesting transparency about its contents.
What did the original scandal involve?
The 2018 Cape Town Test, the third match of that South Africa tour, became the epicentre of Australian cricket's greatest crisis in recent memory. David Warner, a childhood friend of Khawaja and then the team's opening batter, received a 12-month suspension for his role in orchestrating the plan to apply sandpaper to the ball. Captain Steve Smith was also suspended for a year, while Cameron Bancroft, who carried out the act on the field, received a nine-month ban.
At the time, Warner was portrayed as the architect of the scheme. An investigation by Cricket Australia subsequently determined that no other player possessed knowledge of the plan to tamper with the ball—a conclusion that has remained consistent throughout the years. Australia's bowlers issued a statement denying they knew that
"a foreign substance"would be brought onto the field.
There had been a report suggesting that Khawaja had advocated for the team to accept collective responsibility for the incident rather than allowing only the three suspended players to bear the consequences. However, the official investigation found no evidence to support this claim.
How has Cummins responded to the book?
When asked before Friday's opening Test in Durban whether Khawaja had specified the level of detail he would include or whether he would align with his former teammates' account of events, Cummins adopted a measured stance.
"You would have to ask him,"the captain said.
"It's obviously a long time ago. All the investigations, everything was done back then. Answered every question a million times."
Cummins emphasised that the matter had been resolved years earlier and that the team had progressed significantly since then.
"It was dealt with then, all I can say is as a group we've moved on. Very happy with the last eight or nine years, how we've been as a group and evolved. He didn't go into too much detail ... As always it was 'no worries, you can tell your story, that's fine'."
Khawaja wrote the autobiography without assistance from a ghost writer, and there is no indication in advance publicity that he will contradict the findings of the investigations or the positions maintained by his former teammates.
Why is the book generating such attention?
The lead-up to the first Test has been dominated by discussion of the 2018 series, a reality Cummins acknowledged on Thursday when he noted an unusually large media presence in Durban. The attention has been amplified by the fact that this series pits the world's top two Test teams against each other.
Beyond the ball-tampering scandal, the 2018 tour was marked by numerous confrontations between the teams, ranging from on-field clashes to heated exchanges in dressing-room stairwells. However, relations have improved substantially since then, and neither side anticipates similar tensions during this tour.
"It was quite a big series that 2018, it was pretty full on,"Cummins reflected.
"After that, I think pretty much every Test team in the world felt like they'd made some adjustments. This group is quite a different group in how we approach playing, and I'm really proud of how the guys have been since that 2018 series."
What happens next?
The first Test of Australia's 2026 tour of South Africa is scheduled to run from October 9–13 at Kingsmead in Durban. The three-Test series will conclude before Khawaja's book reaches shelves on November 10, meaning the team will have completed its tour before any potential revelations in the memoir become public.
