Even before its publication, Usman Khawaja’s Sabr was already making headlines, thanks to its juicy revelations about the 2018 ball-tampering scandal known as sandpapergate.
asserted
Sabr → make → sandpapergate
“Of course I bloody knew what was happening with the sandpaper,” Khawaja writes, with startling candour.
asserted
Khawaja → know → candour
Until now, a sort of polite official fiction about the sandpaper has prevailed.
asserted
sort → prevail → sandpaper
Nobody knew about it except the three players who publicly took the fall: Steven Smith, the team’s captain; David Warner, his vice-captain; and Cameron Bancroft, the player who was caught on camera doing the deed.
asserted
who → know → deed
Those players served out their suspensions long ago.
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players → serve → suspensions
In the years since, our national team, under the genial and thoroughly decent leadership of Pat Cummins, has put sandpapergate well behind it.
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team → put → it
Now Khawaja has poked the dormant coals, and they’re glowing red-hot.
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they → poke → coals
“We did it as a team,” he writes.
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he → do → team
If that’s true, it means that several members of our current national line-up were implicated, including Cummins.
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members → ’ → Cummins
Why has Khawaja chosen to reopen this old wound now?
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Khawaja → choose → wound
Sabr is an excellent guide to what makes the man tick.
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man → make → ?
At 430 pages long, it’s an unusually detailed sporting memoir, and an unusually honest one.
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it → ’ → pages
Khawaja was four years old when his parents brought him and his two brothers to Australia.
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parents → bring → Australia
The family also had the option of migrating to America – but Khawaja’s father loved cricket, and Americans didn’t play the game.
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Americans → have → game
So Australia it had to be.
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it → have → ?
Usman grew up determined to play for our national team.
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Usman → grow → team
At the age of 21, he was selected to play for New South Wales.
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he → select → Wales
In 2011 he was called up to the Australia’s Test team, becoming the first Muslim to wear the baggy green.
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he → call → green
Sabr (pronounced subber) is an Arabic and Urdu word meaning “patience”.
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Sabr → pronounce → patience
“It was why I was able to do what I did,” he writes.
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he → do → what
During his career, Khawaja was dropped from the national team eight times.
asserted
Khawaja → drop → team
Often he felt his career was stymied by racist stereotypes about the “laziness” of subcontinental players.
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career → feel → players
“I couldn’t prove it, but it looked like discrimination,” he says of an early selection snub.
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he → prove → snub
Sometimes, when Khawaja tells a story in this book, you sense the other parties involved would, if consulted, tell the same story in a very different way.
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parties → tell → way
For example, the Australian selectors might say the fact that they dropped Khawaja eight times also means they picked him eight times.
uncertain
they → say → him
When a teammate called him “stubborn” once, Khawaja viewed it as “the greatest of compliments”.
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Khawaja → call → compliments
He always stands up for what he believes in.
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he → stand → what
He values “integrity over all else”.
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He → value → else
Khawaja, on the other hand, is what philosophers would call a deontologist.
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philosophers → call → what
He believes that telling the truth is an absolute good, and an absolute moral duty.
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telling → believe → truth
This brings us back to sandpapergate.
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This → bring → sandpapergate
When Khawaja claims that the whole team knew about the sandpaper, it’s extremely hard to doubt that he’s telling the truth.
uncertain
he → claim → truth
One thing this book makes crystal clear is that its author is not a liar.
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author → make → ?
So why didn’t he tell the truth eight years ago?
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he → tell → truth
According to Khawaja, he wanted to, but was talked out of it by two men he respected.
uncertain
he → accord → men
“I don’t want to drag anyone else into this,” Smith told him.
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Smith → want → him
Telling the truth would only “make things worse,” Lehmann said, according to Khawaja.
uncertain
Lehmann → tell → Khawaja
“You can come out and say all this stuff, but will it really help anything?”
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it → come → anything
This question has taken on fresh resonance now, following Khawaja’s revelations.
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question → take → revelations
“Uzzy,” Lehmann also said, in Khawaja’s account, “unfortunately this affects everyone, mate, not just you”.
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this → say → everyone
…and 16 more, not listed.
The Aporia
