Cummins stands firm on ball tampering to leave Australian cricket back where it started | Geoff Lemon

The Test captain kept his promise to answer all questions at a press conference that made his position clear and filled some but not all gaps Our coverage on Thursday said that Pat Cummins needed to front up, and nobody can fairly say that he didn’t. It was a proper ’til-they-drop affair from Australia’s cricket captain, an hour and 10 minutes at a press conference podium taking questions about the 2018 ball-tampering episode until every journalist present ran out of steam. You might have expected some partial concession to teammate Usman Khawaja’s depiction of endemic cheating, but Cummins was firm that this did not reflect the life he’d known. Once more with feeling, but more importantly with detail.Media accounts will now depict this as Cummins and Khawaja at war, because a falling-out among friends is a juicy story to fatten up and serve for gluttony. It isn’t fair, because both have emphasised the importance of their friendship, strained as it must now be. As two thoughtful people with shared history, they have a better chance than most to find a way through. Continue reading...