'With a blank wall' - Ethics expert Simon Longstaff on CA's review as Usman Khawaja's claims reignite row

The 2018 ball-tampering scandal at Cape Town prompted Cricket Australia to commission a cultural review led by Dr Simon Longstaff, executive director of The Ethics Centre. The investigation extended beyond the three sanctioned players to examine the entire organisation, including sponsors, supporters and former Test players, seeking context and comparison. Longstaff's team detected enough inconsistency in accounts to suspect the public record remained incomplete, picking up faint whispers that suggested more to the story than officials had disclosed.

During the review, Longstaff afforded senior officials and players the chance to provide additional information or revise their earlier statements. He began hearing shortly after the scandal broke that more people may have known about the ball-tampering than the three players who were sanctioned and that the practice may have predated the Cape Town Test. When he came to look into that, because he could not turn a blind eye to it once the suggestion was made, he afforded the senior people he spoke with an opportunity to say whether there was something else they wanted to add about the whole circumstance.

"Nobody chose to make any alteration to their statement, so I was left with basically a blank wall. Some people were saying one thing, others another, but there was not sufficient evidence to conclude that a further inquiry was required at that time," Longstaff said as quoted by NDTV Sports.

The review examined the whole of Cricket Australia, sponsors, supporters and former Test players to provide context and comparison. Not everybody invited chose to participate. They had the liberty not to. Anything they said was provided under strict conditions of confidentiality, which the Ethics Centre continues to respect today.

How do Khawaja's claims contradict the official findings?

Usman Khawaja's autobiography Sabr contains claims that the entire Australian team knew about ball-tampering during the 2018 Cape Town Test and that sandpaper was used in the preceding Test match at Port Elizabeth. Chad Sayers confirmed Khawaja's account regarding sandpaper use at that venue. Pat Cummins, Australia's Test and ODI captain, rejected the allegations as 'complete and utter nonsense'. David Warner backed Khawaja and criticised Cricket Australia. Khawaja was not among the players Longstaff interviewed, and Longstaff could not recall whether Khawaja had been invited to participate in the investigation.

Longstaff described Cummins' press conference as absolutely convincing in its sincerity. That stands against Khawaja's claim that everybody knew, so there is a clear contradiction. If Cummins did not know, and Longstaff believes he did not, then not everybody knew. But that leaves another question. Was it the case that many more people knew, even if not everyone? Is Khawaja sincere in his belief that a considerably larger number of people were aware? The answer remains unclear.

What remains unresolved?

The bowling group has maintained consistent denial, standing in contrast to what Khawaja and Warner are asserting. When you find this kind of conflict of opinion, there is usually a reason behind it. The question is whether Cricket Australia wants to establish what that reason is. Longstaff stated that truth has a stubborn habit of emerging and Cricket Australia would be better served owning the truth rather than having it stalk the institution. Cricket Australia's chief executive declined to reopen the investigation, stating he wanted to proceed carefully.