Usman Khawaja makes nonsense claim about media’s coverage of fresh Sandpaper-gate claims

Detailed summary

When Usman Khawaja decided to ink into his new book some ticking timebombs about Sandpaper-gate and his former Australian teammates, one wonders what he thought would be the…

When Usman Khawaja decided to ink into his new book some ticking timebombs about Sandpaper-gate and his former Australian teammates, one wonders what he thought would be the fallout.

He told Triple M, the immediate reaction had been “a lot bigger than I thought”. And he told 7.30, the media have “sensationalised” his claims and turned it into “clickbait”. Sorry, Uzzy, that sounds incredibly naive ... and pointing the finger at the media is desperate and plainly wrong.

Sports stars love calling out “clickbait” when they feel aggrieved by the coverage of a story. But seriously, don’t shoot the messenger, especially when you light a fuse, indirectly call your former teammates liars, and everything explodes.

And if Khawaja was told by his publishers something different, he was poorly advised.

He does, however, seem legitimately dumbfounded by the backlash, and hopelessly underprepared for the inevitable shrapnel that comes with it.

Khawaja says he wrote the sandpaper claims in an “open and safe environment”. It’s an interesting turn of phrase and it seems now he feels that the claims (or maybe even himself) are no longer in a “safe” place as they get picked apart.

Khawaja told Triple M: “It’s one thing to attack what I’m saying, but it’s another thing to attack my intention.”

Is it to somehow exonerate his mate David Warner who was suspended after the investigation into the 2018 scandal? Well, he hasn’t really achieved that.

Is your intention to savage Cricket Australia’s investigation and subsequent findings? Probably, but at the moment you are just calling some old teammates liars.

Opening of the article, excerpted from 7NEWS. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.