Scott Boland has rejected Usman Khawaja’s claims that Victoria’s domestic cricketers had perfected the “dark arts” of ball-tampering before the 2018 Cape Town scandal.
Khawaja’s memoir, Sabr, is due to be released on Tuesday and is expected to allege that cheating was widespread in Australian domestic cricket before “Sandpapergate”. In an excerpt, he described Victoria’s players during the 2000s and 2010s as “genius” at extracting maximum value from an old ball.
Boland, who made his Victoria debut in 2011, said he had not witnessed anything improper during his time with the state side.
“Yeah, I don’t know what the dark arts are,” Boland said with a laugh.
“I think in general the last 10 years, probably since Cape Town, reverse swing has really gone out of the game.
“I don’t know, if you went back to club cricket without cameras, you’d probably see a lot of things that would happen.
“From my point of view, I haven’t really seen anything untoward.”
Retired Australia fast bowler Chadd Sayers has backed Khawaja’s recollection of the infamous Test in South Africa. Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon have not issued a fresh response since releasing a joint statement in 2021.
Cricket Australia is understood to be waiting for the official publication of Sabr before responding formally to the allegations.
Boland also played down the prospect of the claims disrupting Australia’s preparations for the upcoming series against New Zealand, after the side’s defeat by South Africa.
“I can’t see it being too much of a distraction, it was eight years ago, the guys have played a lot of Test cricket since then,” he said.
“I don’t see it being too big of a distraction.”
The first Test between Australia and New Zealand is scheduled to begin in Perth on December 9.
