Khawaja won't back down, and Bancroft is the one left holding the sandpaper again

On Thursday Usman Khawaja said 'it was all of us'. On Saturday Darren Lehmann answered that 'books are there to sell'.

Now Khawaja has replied to the reply. In an Instagram video he said the media was "taking this to the moon", that he had "stayed quiet yesterday", and that it was time "to clear some facts".

If anyone expected a climbdown, they didn't get one. They got a clarification that ends up going further than the original.

The careful part first. Khawaja says "all of us" was about shared responsibility: the team should carry 2018 together. He also says he "never" speaks for anyone else in the book, and he blames "clickbait" headlines for saying otherwise.

Then comes the line above. He won't claim everyone knew. He won't deny it either. As non-denials go, that one is as loud as they come. It hands the question straight back to Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon. In 2021 those four put out a joint statement saying they knew nothing about it.

It also takes care of Lehmann's "I don't think everyone would have known". Khawaja isn't asking anyone to take his word on who knew. He's saying he wrote it all down a few days after Cape Town. "You can question my story, no issue, but my memory, I'm not sure about that."

The new fact in the video is about Steve Smith. Khawaja says that after the bans came down, he told Smith he was going to come clean to the media. Smith, "the leader he was", talked him out of it. "He wanted to take the blame."

He says he tried again in 2021, after Bancroft's Guardian interview. He spent hours on the phone to Justin Langer and also called Todd Greenberg, who then ran the players' union. Then the bowlers' statement came out, and he says he "wasn't going to go to war with those guys back then".

That fills in the "why now?" question. Khawaja's version is that he tried twice while he was still playing. Once the captain stopped him, and once the bowlers got in first. Now he's retired, and he says his words "don't influence the team at all".

This was Lehmann's best line, and Khawaja's answer to it is his strongest. The book was ready before Australia's tour of South Africa. He says he refused to publish while "the boys" were still over there, and that he called Pat Cummins to tell him so.

"Why would someone who really wants to increase the sale of his books refuse the greatest marketing opportunity he had?" It's a fair point. A sandpaper book launched in the middle of a series in South Africa would have sold itself. He waited. Sabr comes out on Tuesday.

Here's the awkward part for everyone who wants this to be about the three. The newest extracts put Cameron Bancroft at the centre again. Khawaja writes that in the first innings at Gqeberha, the Test before Cape Town, Warner said he couldn't do it because "they're all over me". Then Bancroft, six Tests into his career and "maybe wanting to fit in", said: "I'll do it."

So the man Khawaja is trying to clear is also the one his book shows putting his hand up. Khawaja has sent Bancroft that chapter. He says Bancroft told him "at length" how hard it was to watch Australia's recent tour of South Africa.

Bancroft hasn't said a word in public. He wasn't put up for media on Saturday. Instead he opened for Western Australia against England's touring side at the WACA, made 32 off 40 balls and took three catches as WA lost by 92 runs. His coach Beau Casson did the talking for him.

Steve Smith and David Warner each got a full career after 2018. Smith went back to the captaincy and Warner left as an all-format great. Bancroft got two Tests. He was passed over to replace Warner as opener in 2024, and then lost the race to open in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Last week he told ABC Grandstand he accepts he probably won't play for Australia again.

That's why Khawaja's "justice" line lands. The official story put the most junior man in the XI front and centre on day three. Every new extract and every "I don't know" has made that story look less complete.

But justice for Bancroft can't come from Khawaja's book, or from Lehmann's memory. It needs the people Khawaja keeps not naming to say what they knew. The bowlers did that in 2021, with a flat denial. Now a former teammate has said publicly that he won't back it up. The book is out on Tuesday. After that, the people still in the team are the only ones who haven't spoken.