Starc says he will not read Khawaja’s book and his story has not changed. Warner calls it “100 per cent accurate”

Mitchell Starc has not read Usman Khawaja’s book, and says he probably never will. But on Tuesday, the day Sabr reached the shops, he became the first current Australian player to say publicly that its most damaging claim is wrong.

Speaking at a launch for the summer’s cricket broadcast coverage, the fast bowler said his account of the 2018 ball-tampering scandal was the one he gave five years ago. “We weren’t aware anything was taken on the field to be tampered with,” he said.

Starc said he knew nothing of Khawaja’s further claim that sandpaper had been used a Test earlier, at Port Elizabeth, and that Cape Town was the first he knew of it. He had not spoken to his former teammate recently. “Obviously there are differing opinions of eight years ago,” he said.

What does Khawaja say now?

Hours later Khawaja sat down for a national television interview and defended the book. “I’m not here to go on a witch hunt,” he said. What he had always wanted, he said, was for the team to take responsibility together.

In Sabr he writes that “the whole team was the architect” of the plan. On Tuesday he stressed that he had not named individuals and was not trying to force anyone to admit fault. He called Cricket Australia’s 2018 investigation rushed.

He rejected the charge that he reopened the affair to sell copies. Sandpaper was not discussed when he signed the book deal in 2023, he said, and his publisher learned he would write about it only about six months ago.

He was less sure about the personal cost. Khawaja named Cummins, Starc and the Marsh brothers among his close friends from that team, and said he did not know whether those friendships would survive.

Who is on which side?

The dressing room has split along a line drawn in 2018.

David Warner, who was banned for a year along with Smith while Bancroft was banned for nine months, said Khawaja’s account was “100 per cent accurate” and criticised the original investigation.

Starc stands with the four frontline bowlers’ 2021 statement, which said they first saw a foreign object on the big screen at Newlands. Former coach Darren Lehmann has also denied that everyone knew. Victorian fast bowler Scott Boland has separately rejected a claim in the book about “dark arts” in his state side.

Cricket Australia is not moving. Chief executive Todd Greenberg said details in the book contradicted versions given by others, that players had been urged for eight years to come forward with anything new, and that the governing body was comfortable with the outcome of its investigation.

What else is in the book?

Sabr is not only about sandpaper. Khawaja, the first Muslim to play Test cricket for Australia, writes that he felt he was passed over for the captaincy after Smith’s ban because of the colour of his skin. On Tuesday he said there was no concrete evidence of that, that it was how he felt at the time, and that Tim Paine, who got the job, had been a great captain.

Why does this matter beyond cricket?

Because the official record rests on a finding that only three players knew, and two of the eleven who played that Test, Warner and Khawaja, now say otherwise in public. Year-long bans and a lost captaincy followed from that finding.

It also lands at an awkward moment. England are in the country for a one-day series, the New Zealand Tests follow, and the bowlers named in the 2021 statement are still the core of Australia’s attack, led by a captain who has yet to say a word.