The Sandpaper Controversy Returns: Accountability Between Lehmann’s and Khawaja’s Accounts

The images of sandpaper during the 2026 Cape Town Test marked a turning point for Australian cricket. Now the debate about that tour has reopened around a further question: how many people in the team knew about the plan to tamper with the ball? Darren Lehmann, Australia’s coach at the time, has said he did not know of a plan to use sandpaper. In contrast, a reported comment from Usman Khawaja, a member of that team—“It was all of us”—extends responsibility beyond the three players who were sanctioned.

Those statements should not be treated as equivalent forms of evidence. Following Cricket Australia’s investigation, Cameron Bancroft, Steve Smith and David Warner faced sanctions. Khawaja’s comment is a claim about broader collective responsibility; the material available here does not include separate testimony from every player or independent confirmation of each person’s knowledge. Lehmann’s denial, in turn, does not by itself clear everyone whose role might be questioned. What is before us is a dispute between recollections and an unfinished argument about accountability—not a new, conclusive investigative finding.

Australia’s 2026 tour of South Africa was a four-Test series. The controversy centres on Newlands in Cape Town and the venue of the second Test, then known as Port Elizabeth and now Gqeberha. To understand the cricketing context, it is important to distinguish reverse swing from the condition of the ball. The movement of an older ball through the air in the opposite direction is a legitimate Test-cricket skill. Attempting to create that movement by altering the ball’s surface with sandpaper is a question of rules and sporting integrity. Treating the two as the same blurs the boundary at the heart of the controversy.

Lehmann has said the Australian team knew South Africa were generating reverse swing and discussed how to counter it. He has also acknowledged South Africa’s effectiveness at producing it, while denying knowledge of a sandpaper plan. That distinction is central: discussing a tactical problem, knowing that ball-tampering is being discussed, and having direct knowledge of the act are three different things. The available account provides context for the first, while the parties’ claims differ on the other two.

I have spent years watching Test cricket from grounds and training sessions. In cases like this, it is important to look beyond the scorecard—but not to leap beyond the record. The material available here contains no session-by-session performance data, detailed account of the ball’s examination, bowling spells or analysis of reverse swing’s effect on particular wickets. It is therefore impossible to say that the alleged tampering changed the match result or caused a specific weakness in Australia’s batting. Such a conclusion would require match data and independent technical evidence.

How information moves within a team is connected to on-field strategy, but it is not the same question. Coaches, captains, senior players and the players handling the ball have different roles. Separate meetings, conversations and the everyday structure of a dressing room can shape who knows what. Yet a team’s structure cannot prove what any particular person knew. It only shows why an investigation should record each level of knowledge separately.

Khawaja’s “It was all of us” statement points towards collective responsibility, but it cannot be treated as proof that every player saw the sandpaper, approved its use or took part. Conversely, the fact that the original investigation sanctioned three players does not automatically prove that no one else in the team had any knowledge. Formal sanctions and a later personal account are different kinds of record. They should be considered together, but neither should replace the other.

There is also a difficult leadership question in Lehmann’s account. He has said he “probably should have known” about a conversation involving Bancroft, while maintaining that he was not the coach Bancroft was speaking to at the time and that he did not know of the sandpaper plan before the television images appeared. “I probably should have known” is not an admission of direct involvement. It does, however, raise questions about oversight and communication. A coach’s responsibility is not only to know what players are doing; it is also to consider where information about risky decisions might stop moving through a team.

An uncomfortable feature of the debate is how often it is reduced to two positions: either everyone knew, or only the three sanctioned players were responsible. Accountability in cricket is more finely graded. One person may have acted; another may have seen; someone else may have received a warning; a senior figure may have presided over a culture in which questions went unasked; and another person may genuinely have been unaware. The same accusation or defence cannot be applied equally to all these circumstances. An investigation must distinguish them rather than compress them into a single sentence in a later debate.

The issue has returned to public discussion ahead of the publication of Khawaja’s autobiography, Sabr. Lehmann has suggested that selling the book may also be part of the reason for discussing the matter. That is his view; the timing of publication does not by itself disprove Khawaja’s claim. A possible publicity incentive behind a statement and the statement’s factual credibility are separate questions. Readers should ask what new detail the book provides, what direct experience it rests on and whether other players, officials or documents corroborate it.

Lehmann has also described the aftermath as mentally difficult, saying he spent a long period not leaving home and needed help. That experience should not be dismissed. At the same time, the impact on an individual cannot establish whether their account is true or false. Responsible sports journalism can hold both principles together: rigorous scrutiny of public claims and care for those affected by them. Revisiting an old controversy may be necessary; turning it into sensationalism is not.

The firmest conclusion available is that the team’s strategic discussion of reverse swing has been described, Lehmann has denied knowing about a sandpaper plan, and Khawaja’s account broadens the question of responsibility. The available material does not resolve the conflict. It includes no new independent investigative report, no confirmation from every relevant player and no match analysis establishing a causal link between the ball’s condition and the result. Until such documents or testimony emerge, the claim should be described as an allegation and the denial as the account of one of the people involved.

The integrity ledger asks more than who altered the ball. It asks who saw, who knew, who intervened and where oversight failed. The answers may differ. A meaningful next discussion of the 2026 case depends on examining direct action, knowledge, supervisory failure and retrospective moral responsibility as separate questions. If Sabr or another source provides new details, the next signal will be independent corroboration: do former players’ accounts, investigative documents and the record of events align? That is where an old dispute can move beyond opinion and become verifiable history.