Eight years after the infamous incident, Khawaja has claimed in his autobiography, , that the entire team was involved and in the know of the use of sandpaper to alter the condition of the ball. “It was all of us,” Khawaja told the Sydney Morning Herald in an interview. “Not the batters, not the bowlers, not the staff. All of us.”

The 39-year-old added that the team had even used sandpaper before the Cape Town Test. In the second Test of the series at Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha), Khawaja claimed the team discovered the use of "sandpaper as an effective agent". He added that Bancroft volunteered to use it at St George's Park before eventually being caught on camera at Newlands.

Notably, Cricket Australia had confirmed in their findings that only Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were responsible for the Sandpapergate scandal. CA banned Smith and Warner for 12 months from playing international and domestic cricket while also banning the latter from leadership positions for life. Bancroft was given a nine-month ban, whereas Warner's leadership ban was overturned in 2024.

Khawaja claimed he felt at the time that the team should have taken a collective responsibility as everyone was clearly aware of the use of sandpaper. “In an ideal world, I don’t want to do this,” he added. “I don’t want to be the one who comes out and talks about the truth. The issue is that I genuinely thought after eight years the truth would have been out by now.”

“Maybe I thought Davey would have exposed it, or someone else would have talked about it more. I just didn’t think it was going to come down to this. But the longer it’s gone on for, and right from the very start, I’ve been on the train of collectively taking it.

“Even in the change rooms when I was talking to them after the game. I said, ‘Take this as a team’. We did this as a team. We knew what was going on, and we have to take it as a team, and so I was always of that stance. Obviously, it didn’t work that way, and those three guys got crucified.”

Interestingly, Bancroft was asked in an interview with The Guardian 2021 if the bowlers were aware, in reply to which he said it was ‘self-explanatory’. The quartet of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon had then released a statement denying they were aware of the use of a foreign substance on the field to change the condition of the ball.

Cricket Australia releases statement after Khawaja’s revelations

Following Khawaja’s revelations, CA released a statement backing its investigation. “There has been a great deal of speculation in the eight years since the 2018 Cape Town Test, including extensive media coverage throughout last month’s series in South Africa,” the statement read.

“During this time there has been the ongoing opportunity to present any relevant information, and this remains the case. All relevant information presented to CA to date has been properly considered and we remain comfortable with the findings of our integrity process.”

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