Australia cricket captain describes Khawaja's Sandpapergate claim as 'utter nonsense'

SYDNEY (AP) — Australia captain Pat Cummins has described as “utter nonsense” the allegation from ex-teammate Usman Khawaja that he knew about using sandpaper to tamper with a ball in a 2018 cheating scandal that rocked cricket.

Cummins held an extraordinary news conference Friday to address the claims in Khawaja's autobiography, published this week, hours ahead Australia's home-season opening one-day international against England in Perth.

Khawaja has said he published his account that the whole team knew of the plot in a bid to support the three players who received unprecedented and lengthy bans from Cricket Australia arising from the so-called Sandpapergate scandal.

He's had public support from one them — his longtime friend and fellow top-order batter David Warner, who posted on social media that the Cricket Australia investigation at the time was rushed and botched.

Cummins, who was part of bowling attack in that test at Cape Town against South Africa, rejected that and accused Khawaja of being “casual” and “flippant” with his claims.

“When he says we all knew, if by that he means that we knew sandpaper was going out in the field, he’s 100% wrong,” Cummins told a packed news conference in Sydney. “I’ve said that consistently for the last eight years. I did not know that was happening.

“But I think Usman actually says things that are actually far more serious than that. He says that I and others were architects of a scheme to ball tamper with sandpaper.

“That’s complete and utter nonsense.”

Cummins opened the news conference by saying he was prepared to answer questions all day if required, because he didn't want the topic to be dredged up again every time a book was published or another claim made.

After an hour, a cricket administrator suggested the news conference wind down, but Cummins again invited all questions to continue for as long as needed. It lasted a further 10 minutes.

Steve Smith and Warner — the captain and vice-captain in that series eight years ago — were each banned for 12 months by Cricket Australia following an investigation into the cheating plot.

Cameron Bancroft, who was caught on TV footage using sandpaper on the ball during the test match, was banned for nine months.

Cricket Australia, team management and other players have rarely commented on the saga. The bowling group, including Mitchell Starc, has rejected claims that everyone was in on the plot to use sandpaper to help make the ball “reverse” — or swing unconventionally through the air.

But in his autobiography, Khawaja said he was sitting beside Bancroft in the locker rooms when he heard of a plot to tamper with the ball, and urged caution.

Cummins, who was 13 tests into his international career in that Cape Town match, on Friday turned the spotlight back on Khawaja, who retired from the test team earlier this year.

“I was genuinely shocked this week when I found out that Usman admitted that he told Cam to be careful when using sandpaper,” he said.

“That’s not the Usman that I know. It’s not the Usman that I think has been part of a team that’s helped rebuild the Australian cricket culture over the last eight years,” he said. “And the one that would have stopped that from happening there and then.”

__

See AP’s full cricket coverage here

Australia's captain Pat Cummins, right, tosses a ball to Mitchell Starc, on day four of the third cricket test match between South Africa and Australia, in Cape Town, South Africa, Friday, Oct. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Halden Krog)

Australian men's cricket team captain Pat Cummins speaks in Sydney, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, about the Sandpapergate cheating scandal. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)

Australia men’s cricket captain Pat Cummins speaks in Sydney, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, about the Sandpapergate cheating scandal. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)

Australian men's cricket team captain Pat Cummins speaks in Sydney, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, about the so-called Sandpapergate cheating scandal. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man convicted of fatally stabbing and beheading three young children in a squalid, windowless apartment in 2003 was executed Thursday evening, hours after Oklahoma put another man to death.

John Allen Rubio, 46, was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m. after a lethal injection at the state prison in Huntsville. The killings of the baby girl and two toddlers so rocked the city of Brownsville on the U.S. border with Mexico that the apartment building was later demolished and the land turned into a park and community garden.

After a spiritual adviser prayed over him briefly, Rubio thanked friends and family for their “love and understanding” and said he was “not the same person I once was.” He thanked prison staff for teaching him how to find God and also expressed love for his common-law wife, Angela Camacho, who is serving life in prison for her role in the slayings.

“I want to say I’m sorry to my wife’s family,” he said. “I can’t change the past but I can tell you my life is going to be over. But that’s not going to make you happy."

“I’m going to be with my kids in a little bit,” he added. “I’m ready to go to heaven to be with my lord and savior.”

As the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began taking effect, Rubio took three breaths and began what sounded like snoring. All movement ceased afterward, and a physician pronounced him dead 21 minutes after the injection began.

Earlier Thursday, James Pavatt, 73, received a lethal injection at an Oklahoma prison for the fatal shooting of his girlfriend’s estranged husband in 2001. The victim was killed as he arrived to pick up his two young children before Thanksgiving.

Thursday’s executions were the 36th and 37th this year, with the U.S. on track to surpass 40 executions for a second consecutive year — a pace driven by Florida.

The death penalty has drawn renewed attention since the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee in September. And last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he would commute hundreds of death sentences before leaving office in January — what experts say would be the largest mass clemency in American history.

Rubio and Camacho were accused of killing 3-year-old Julissa Quesada, 14-month-old John E. Rubio and 2-month-old Mary Jane Rubio in the apartment they shared in Brownsville. Camacho drew a life sentence after pleading guilty.

An appeals court overturned Rubio’s first capital murder conviction, ruling Camacho's statements were improperly admitted as evidence in his trial. At his second trial, Rubio again pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but again was convicted and sentenced to death.

According to court records, Rubio wasn’t the biological father of the two older children but treated them as his own.

At various points, Rubio claimed the children were possessed and that he was the “chosen one” intended to save the world.

Defense experts diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia, a finding prosecution experts rejected. The defense experts also testified his childhood — marked by violence at home, “toxic” parents, drug use and prostitution — damaged him developmentally.

When the Oklahoma inmate Pavatt was asked if he had any last words before his execution, he shook his head no. As a chaplain read from the Bible, Pavatt appeared to mouth some words that couldn't be heard.

Pavatt was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the killing of Rob Andrew, a 39-year-old advertising executive. Pavatt attended the same church as the Andrew family and had been having an affair with Rob Andrew’s wife, Brenda Andrew. She was convicted at a separate trial and is the only woman currently on Oklahoma's death row.

Weeks before the shooting, Rob Andrew told police someone was trying to kill him after the brake lines on his car were cut. Brenda Andrew told police after her husband was killed that masked intruders shot her in the arm and fatally shot him.

Pavatt and Brenda Andrew fled to Mexico with her two children after the shooting and were arrested three months later while reentering the U.S.

Also Thursday, former Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of being an accessory in a 1997 murder and awaits sentencing in December. Glossip, who had been on the brink of execution three times, was released on bond in May after nearly 30 years in prison. He had been awaiting a retrial after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction.

Stengle reported from McAlester, Oklahoma.

This photo provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows James Pavatt in Feb. 2023. (Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP)

This photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows John Allen Rubio on Oct. 31, 2022. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP).