Cricket Australia slams the door on Sandpapergate just as Khawaja opens a second one

Usman Khawaja has spoken. David Warner has called his account "100% accurate". Chadd Sayers, a squad member in Cape Town, told Channel 7 on Saturday that "everything Usman says in his article is accurate". Cricinfo understands one more player from that Test backs Khawaja too.

Cricket Australia's response arrived on Tuesday morning, on SEN radio. Chief executive Todd Greenberg said the board sees "absolutely no benefit in going back", and that there is no "compelling reason" to reopen the 2018 investigation.

He also admitted he hadn't read the book yet. He had taken a call from Khawaja about it. So the official position on Sabr was settled before the man setting it had turned a page.

Greenberg's case rests on one idea: the dressing room disagrees with itself. He says he spoke to other Cape Town players over the weekend, and that "lots of other players" have "a very, very different version of events". In his words, everyone ends up "at the same intersection point".

That's true, and it's also the problem. An investigation exists to settle disputed accounts. "People remember it differently" is the reason to interview them, not the reason to stop. And the 2018 inquiry never heard Khawaja's version at all, even though he sat next to Cameron Bancroft for the whole Cape Town Test.

Greenberg isn't a neutral voice here either. He ran the players' association from 2020 to 2025, spoke to many of the Cape Town players in that job, and has seen the full investigation transcripts. Nobody at CA knows the file better. That makes "nothing can be gained" a choice, not a finding.

The book itself went further than the extracts. Khawaja describes the final session of day two at St George's Park, the Test before Cape Town. South Africa started it on 153 for 2, with Dean Elgar and Hashim Amla building an 88-run stand in reply to Australia's 243.

Then, he writes, Bancroft walked out after the break, picked up the ball the umpires had left on the field and "given it a few twists and turns". South Africa lost 4 for 28.

His explanation for why it was needed is pure cricket logic. South Africa could get the ball reversing "in less than 25 overs". Australia needed "40, 50 overs", and in that innings "weren't even close". So they skipped the wait.

Here's the bit nobody in CA's media unit will enjoy. It didn't even work. AB de Villiers made 126 not out off 146 balls, which Khawaja calls "one of the great innings". South Africa won by six wickets.

And in Australia's second innings, he says, South Africa were reversing it everywhere after about 21 overs. "We didn't know what they were doing with the ball," he writes. "And we were using sandpaper!"

He doesn't name a single bowler. He writes that he's "not here to attack the bowlers", and that "we made mistakes and made them as a team". He also goes back to the 2017-18 Ashes, saying the team raised the flaps on the quarter seam of the pink ball to get it reversing, while adding that "the whole world" was trying something.

That restraint makes the book harder to dismiss. A score-settler names names. Khawaja names a session, a score and a fielding position, gully, where he says he kept thinking "even I could reverse swing this ball".

Greenberg says nobody wants this chapter closed more than he does, "but it is unlikely". He's right about that last part, and his own schedule proves it.

Mitchell Starc, a bowler in that Cape Town XI, faces the media on Tuesday afternoon. Mitchell Marsh, who also played, speaks on Thursday before the first ODI against England in Perth. Greenberg has confirmed Pat Cummins will talk "in the coming days". Greenberg expects the bowlers to repeat what they said in 2018 and 2021.

Maybe they will. But the question has changed. In 2018 it was "did you know about Cape Town?" Now it's "what happened in Port Elizabeth?", and no inquiry ever asked it. CA has decided it doesn't want the answer. It doesn't get to decide whether reporters ask.