Australia's cricket captain Pat Cummins has again denied any involvement in the plot to use sandpaper on the ball in a test match against South Africa in 2018.

At a press conference in Sydney on Friday, he described the allegations in ex-teammate Usman Khawaja's autobiography as "utter nonsense".

Khawaja said last weekend that all the players in the team at Newlands knew about the plot, triggering calls for a new investigation into the incident.

"When he says we all knew, if by that he means that we knew sandpaper was going out in the field, he's 100 percent wrong. I've said that consistently for the last eight years," Cummins said.

"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 also took exception to Pakistan-born Khawaja's contention in the book that the colour of his skin and background had prevented him from becoming Australia captain.

"I think of all the things that I've read this week, I think that's actually the most serious," he said. "Him saying that if you're Australian captain, you have to be a certain skin colour, I couldn't disagree with that statement any more."

Steve Smith and David Warner, the then Australia captain and vice-captain, were banned by Cricket Australia from elite cricket for a year for their roles in the ball-tampering.

Warner on Monday said he backed Khawaja's version of events as "100 percent accurate".

"There's quite a few different accounts here, so they've got two accounts," said Cummins. "There's 11 players in that room, so that means there's nine other guys who I think it's appropriate you give an equal amount of weighting to their story as well."

Opening batter Cameron Bancroft, who brought a piece of sandpaper onto the field, received a nine-month suspension for his part in the ball-tampering.

Khawaja and Warner have also been critical of the Cricket Australia investigation in 2018 that found the three punished players solely responsible for the plot.

Earlier this week, the head of Cricket Australia ruled out opening another investigation into the incident.



Edited by Aaron Tam