Warner claims Cricket Australia 'cover up' as bowlers' interviews questioned

David Warner has escalated his dispute with Cricket Australia, claiming that three bowlers who played in the 2018 Cape Town Test were never interviewed as part of the board's original ball-tampering investigation.

Writing on Instagram on Saturday, Warner said that, as far as he was aware, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon — the bowlers who made up Pat Cummins's attack in that match — had not been questioned by Cricket Australia in 2018, according to the Guardian.

His post read: "As far as l am aware, CA did not interview Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc or Nathan Lyon in their 2018 investigation."

Warner argued that if his account was correct, it undermined Cricket Australia's long-standing position that the bowling group had no knowledge of the plan to alter the ball, and he said the episode "stinks of a cover up."

The claim followed a day after Warner accused Cummins of having thrown Usman Khawaja "under the bus", a remark made in the aftermath of a press conference on Friday that ran for more than an hour.

Cummins used that appearance to reject any suggestion that he had known sandpaper would be used on the field at Newlands, insisting he "did not know" it was being carried out.

Cricket Australia has continued to defend its original inquiry. A spokesperson said: "As we have stated previously, all players were given the opportunity to speak at the time of the initial investigation and have had the ability to come forward with new evidence in the eight years since."

The board also said it had respected every player and former player's right to offer their own version of events from the tour.

Only Warner, Cameron Bancroft and Steve Smith were sanctioned after the investigation concluded that the trio had prior knowledge of the scheme carried out in Cape Town.

The row has been reignited this year by Khawaja's memoir, Sabr, and by the interviews he has given while promoting it.

Warner's latest allegation has also drawn renewed attention to remarks made in 2022 by his manager, James Erskine, which are being widely recirculated according to Yahoo Sports.

Erskine said at the time that far more than three people were involved in the original ball-tampering plan, and claimed the idea had taken shape after Australia's defeat to South Africa in Hobart during the 2016-17 season, two years before the Cape Town Test.

Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg has already ruled out reopening the investigation, even as the public exchanges between Warner, Cummins and Khawaja continue to put fresh scrutiny on how the board handled the episode in 2018.