Cummins rejects Khawaja's ball-tampering claims in press conference
Cummins said there was no master plan and that he did not know sandpaper was being used on the field during the 2018 South Africa tour.
Australia Test captain Pat Cummins on Friday dismissed ball-tampering claims made by Usman Khawaja in his new memoir, Cricket Australia said in a statement.
Cummins held a press conference at Cricket NSW's Silverwater headquarters that lasted more than an hour, addressing questions about an eight-year-old scandal that Khawaja's autobiography, Sabr, has brought back into focus.
Cummins described Khawaja's claims as "flippant" and "irresponsible" and repeated that he had no knowledge of the 2018 sandpaper plot in Cape Town.
He denied that there was any "master plan" to use illegal methods to gain reverse swing during that tour of South Africa, saying there was no team meeting on the subject.
Cummins said he did not know sandpaper was being used on the field, saying that if Khawaja meant the team knew, "he's 100 per cent wrong."
He called Khawaja's suggestion that he and others were architects of a scheme to tamper with the ball using sandpaper "complete and utter nonsense."
Cummins also said the punishments handed to Cameron Bancroft, Steve Smith and David Warner were "way too heavy-handed."
He said there was a lot of pressure around reverse swing at the time, and that he had once seen a senior batter take a bottle cap onto the field in a Sheffield Shield match.
Cummins said he did not want to discuss the matter again after Friday, and he described Khawaja as a friend while criticising the way the memoir presented the events.
The 2018 Cape Town episode led to bans for Bancroft, Smith and Warner, and it remains one of the most closely watched controversies in Australian cricket.
