Pat Cummins said yesterday he has “taken some time to try and better understand the long list and full extent of Uzzy’s allegations so I can respond properly”.
Nothing wrong with wrapping your head around what’s been said to avoid going off media reports, but in the meantime a lot of his past and present teammates have been doing media opps and been forced to answer questions about it.
The party line from current players has pretty much been: “Usman’s told his story, which he’s entitled to do, but I’m not keen to relitigate the events of 2018.”
If that’s all Cummins offers this morning, this could be a very frustrating morning for him and reporters.
When the prospect of Khawaja’s book came out, Cummins revealed they had spoken ahead of time and the skipper said:
“It’s obviously a long time ago. All the investigations, everything was done back then. Answered every question a million times. It was dealt with then. All I can say is as a group we’ve moved on. [I’m] very happy with the last eight or nine years, how we’ve been as a group and evolved. He didn’t go into too much detail … As always, it was, ‘No worries. You can tell your story. That’s fine.'”
The issue is, while Khawaja’s book tells the story from his perspective, it’s not only his story because it does implicate others. Whether that’s saying an unnamed assistant coach called for more work on the ball, or implying an unnamed fast bowler knew more than has been let on, or shedding more light on the conduct of David Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft, these are Khawaja’s stories but they’re ABOUT others.
Cummins was there and now, eight years later, he’s the captain of this Test team. It would be good if we could have a few more answers than the usual, but I’m not overly optimistic to be honest.
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