Starc holds the 2021 line, Healy calls it a bus crash, and Port Elizabeth goes unanswered

For four days the question was simple: what do the bowlers say? Usman Khawaja's book Sabr says the whole team knew. David Warner called it "100% accurate". Cricket Australia said it won't reopen anything.

On Tuesday Mitchell Starc became the first of the 2018 quartet, him, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon, to answer. His answer was the 2021 statement, read back almost word for word.

"My recollection hasn't changed from what we said in 2021," he said at the Kayo Sports and Fox Cricket season launch. He also said he "probably won't" read the book. That's a man choosing a position, not revisiting one.

Here's the part that matters. The 2021 statement was about Cape Town. Khawaja's book goes one Test earlier, to Port Elizabeth, where he describes the ball being worked on during a session that swung the match.

Starc was asked about that Test directly. His reply: Cape Town "is the first I was aware of any of that taking place … I'll leave that one for the author to explain."

Read it carefully. It's a denial of knowledge, not a denial that it happened. And "the author to explain" puts the burden back on Khawaja, the one person in this saga who has already explained it in a few hundred pages.

Starc also tried the line Todd Greenberg used that morning: there are "differing opinions", "different versions from different people". He said the players were "heavily grilled through the process at the time, and since".

Fair enough on the grilling. But the 2018 inquiry looked at one Test. Nobody grilled anyone about Port Elizabeth, because nobody asked. "Different versions" is an argument for a hearing, not for leaving it "where I left it back then".

And note the hedge: "I won't speak on behalf of the bowlers, but where I stand…" In 2021 the four spoke as one. On Tuesday Starc spoke for one.

Khawaja said on Instagram he had not "thrown anyone under the bus". Alyssa Healy, Starc's wife, answered with the best line of the week. She also said the timing is "a little bit sticky for me, I don't like that".

The awkward bit: Healy, Khawaja and Warner all work for Kayo/Fox this summer. Healy says there's no problem. "We're a team," she said, adding that "most of the blokes back there just say, 'Let's move on and get back to the cricket'."

Starc hasn't spoken to Khawaja in recent days. Will they talk? "It's up to him." That's not a reconciliation. That's a door left closed with the key on the other side.

Starc called it "definitely disappointing" that this is the talk heading into the first ODI against England in Perth on Friday. He's right. It's also not going away, because the next speakers are already booked.

Mitchell Marsh faces the media on Thursday. Bancroft and Lyon are both playing Shield cricket on Wednesday, in front of reporters with one question. Smith is back next week.

Starc's answer works for Cape Town, where the 2021 statement already lives. It doesn't work for Port Elizabeth, where it never did. Until someone from that bowling group answers the question about the earlier Test, "I'll leave it where I left it" just means the next player gets asked instead.