{"id":767,"date":"2026-11-07T22:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T22:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/07\/darren-lehmann-denies-usman-khawaja-sandpaper-claims-says-everyone-was-ball-tampering-then\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T22:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T22:12:07","slug":"darren-lehmann-denies-usman-khawaja-sandpaper-claims-says-everyone-was-ball-tampering-then","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/07\/darren-lehmann-denies-usman-khawaja-sandpaper-claims-says-everyone-was-ball-tampering-then\/","title":{"rendered":"Darren Lehmann denies Usman Khawaja sandpaper claims, says \u201ceveryone\u201d was ball tampering then"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Updated on 6 minutes ago by Charbel Coorey<\/a><\/p>\n

Darren Lehmann has denied Usman Khawaja\u2019s claims that everyone in the Australian camp knew about sandpaper in 2018. <\/p>\n

In an interview ahead of the launch of his book Sabr<\/em>, Khawaja said the sandpaper scandal was \u201call of us\u201d<\/a> rather than just the leadership group. \u201cNot the batters, not the bowlers, not the staff. All of us,\u201d Khawaja said.<\/p>\n

Darren Lehmann reacts to Usman Khawaja\u2019s sandpaper claims<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Former coach Darren Lehmann, who resigned from the role amid the fallout, denies prior knowledge regarding plans to tamper the ball. He also said that ball tampering was a common occurrence around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think everyone would have known [about the use of sandpaper]. You do know ball tampering is going on because it\u2019s been happening for 150 years,\u201d Lehmann said, as quoted by ABC News<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just how it\u2019s being done, and how you would know to that extent? That\u2019s an individual case by case, to be fair.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can only speak to what I know, and I know ball tampering was a big part of the game of cricket. Now it is obsolete.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t make it right either, but that\u2019s the case, and we paid a heavy price for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khawaja also claims he wanted to take responsibility as a team rather than have Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft take the fall. Smith and Warner were banned for 12 months, and Bancroft for nine. The latter played just two Test matches since [against England in 2019].<\/p>\n

However, Lehmann says he can neither confirm nor deny the claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t remember that. There were two change rooms obviously, and there were meetings going on everywhere. To be perfectly honest I was in meetings with Cricket Australia a lot,\u201d Lehmann said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat could have been the case, I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m not saying yes or no to that one. There will be different points of view everywhere on this whole matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Darren Lehmann denies Usman Khawaja sandpaper claims, says \u201ceveryone\u201d was ball tampering then<\/a> appeared first on CricBlog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Updated on 6 minutes ago by Charbel Coorey Darren Lehmann has denied Usman Khawaja\u2019s claims that everyone in the Australian camp knew about sandpaper in 2018. In an interview ahead of the launch of his book Sabr, Khawaja said the sandpaper scandal was \u201call of us\u201d rather than just the leadership group. \u201cNot the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cricketkidunyya.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}