Pat Cummins stood in front of reporters on Friday afternoon and tried to explain what he had been doing on his own driveway earlier in the week. He had been taking out the recycling, he said, and he had gotten bin day wrong.

The admission came in response to a short video that had been circulating for days, showing the Australia Test captain in an animated exchange with his wife Becky outside their Sydney home. It had been published by the national newspaper The Australian.

Cummins pushed back on the framing of a marital bust-up. His wife, he said, had not been angry with him.

“We weren’t having a spat. Becky was very frustrated and animated and really unhappy with Usman,” he told reporters at Cricket NSW’s Silverwater base.

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The Usman he meant was Usman Khawaja, his opening batter and teammate.

‘Half ridiculous’

What bothered him, he told the Sydney press conference, was the camera itself.

“It’s half very comical. Becky wears her heart on her sleeve. And half ridiculous. We are here talking about something that was dealt with eight-and-a-half years ago. Now, I am walking my daughter in her nappies on the front (of my house) and I have got cameras chasing me and my family. For me that’s a bit ridiculous,” he said, as reported by MyKhel.

Becky had pushed him to be more open rather than less, telling him to show his emotion because other people were hurting.

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Why Khawaja set him off

Khawaja, Australia’s 39-year-old opener, released an excerpt of his autobiography on November 7, claiming the whole Australia squad knew about the plan to use sandpaper on the ball during the third Test against South Africa at Cape Town in 2018.

“It was all of us. Not the batters, not the bowlers, not the staff. All of us,” he wrote.

Cricket Australia’s original investigation held only Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft responsible. Khawaja’s book argues the circle was wider, and that discussions about roughing up the ball also took place in the dressing room during the preceding Test at Port Elizabeth.

Cummins, who played in both matches, rejected that reading flatly.

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“When he says we all knew, if by that he means that we knew sandpaper was going out in the field, he’s 100 per cent wrong,” Cummins told the Sydney press conference, calling the suggestion that he had helped architect the plan “complete and utter nonsense”.

He added, in remarks to the same press conference reported by Sky Sports: “Usman’s a friend, but friends aren’t casual with each other’s lives and reputations. Ussie has been casual with my life and the lives of many others.”

Cummins said he had been told some of what had been said this week was “probably defamatory”. He has decided not to sue.

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