Nearly six years after one of the most high-profile disciplinary scandals in modern international cricket, former Australian Test vice-captain David Warner has publicly thrown his full support behind teammate Usman Khawaja’s explosive recent claims about the 2018 Cape Town ball-tampering incident. The 2018 controversy unfolded during the third Test of Australia’s tour of South Africa, when opening batter Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera using a small piece of sandpaper to scuff the surface of the match ball, a practice banned under International Cricket Council rules that allows bowlers to generate unfair swing and spin. In the immediate aftermath of the incident, Cricket Australia handed down landmark sanctions: Warner, who was identified as the primary architect of the plan, and then-captain Steve Smith received 12-month international and domestic bans, while Bancroft was suspended for nine months. For years following the sanctions, members of the team’s bowling cohort have consistently denied any prior awareness of the sandpaper scheme, maintaining that the plot was limited to a tiny handful of senior batters. That long-standing narrative was upended last week when Khawaja, a top-order batter who was part of the 2018 touring squad, stated on record that every single member of the Australian playing group had full knowledge of the tampering plan before it was executed. In a 2024 Instagram video statement posted shortly after his retirement from all international cricket, Warner broke a nearly eight-year public silence on the details of the scandal to validate Khawaja’s account. “It’s been eight years since I spoke on this topic. And Ussie, I throw my full support behind you. I thank you for what you’ve done. It’s 100% accurate what you’ve said. Now everyone knows the truth,” Warner stated. The retired opener went a step further to condemn the 2018 official investigation led by Cricket Australia, describing the entire process as rushed, disorganized, and fundamentally flawed, suggesting that critical context and details about the full scope of team awareness were overlooked during the original disciplinary proceedings.