“I have never thrown anybody underneath the bus,” Khawaja stated. “The blokes which might be at the moment within the workforce proper now and the opposite people who have been there on the South African tour, together with me, we’re not the victims. These three guys took the blame for all of us. They’re the victims. Individuals telling them that they are cheats, getting nailed by the group, public humiliation.
“I made a promise to my childhood buddy David Warner that I’d inform the reality, so he might inform a narrative,” Khawaja added. “I am completely 100% unapologetic for that. I caught up for all cricketers previously by way of the ACA, preventing for what I believed was proper. That is no totally different.
“These three guys deserve justice, and I have never pointed fingers at anybody. I am nonetheless looking for what I used to be looking out all these years in the past. For us, me included, to take the blame collectively as a workforce, so we are able to all transfer on from this as soon as and for all. You understand what? I’d do it once more in a heartbeat.”
In the beginning of his first video on Sunday, Khawaja stated his assertion that “it was all of us” was in reference to your entire workforce being liable for what passed off though added he wouldn’t deny that everybody knew. “I by no means communicate on behalf of anybody else in my e-book,” he stated.
Khawaja defined that within the aftermath of the Cape City Check in 2018 when the sanctions had been handed out to Smith, Warner and Bancroft he needed to “come clear within the media” about what had taken place.
“Smudge [Smith] being the person and chief he was talked me out of it,” Khawaja stated. “He needed to take the blame. I argued with him, however he was having none of it. That is the primary time I attempted to come back out.”
Khawaja additionally revealed that he had made one other try for collective duty after Bancroft’s notorious 2021 interview to the Guardian the place he stated it was “self explanatory” that the bowlers would have identified what had gone in South Africa.
Nonetheless, he felt it was unimaginable for him to say something publicly as soon as the bowlers issued their joint assertion. “This actually p**sed me off however not as a lot because it pissed Davy off,” Khawaja wrote in an extract revealed by Information Corp. “I acquired some fairly heated texts that evening. I am unsure about Smudge [Smith] however I am certain he wasn’t thrilled.”
On Instagram, he added: “I wasn’t going to go to conflict with these guys again then. I simply wasn’t comfy. That is the reality.
“So you then ask, why did not I say something in these 4 years whereas I used to be nonetheless enjoying? You understand what, I by no means needed to be the primary man to speak about this. Name me a hen or no matter you need. I did not know tips on how to do it as a result of I used to be nonetheless within the workforce. How was I ever presupposed to deliver this up after I knew a few of my team-mates did not wish to discuss it? I knew every little thing I did or stated at all times influenced and affected the workforce.
“I used to be at all times acutely aware of placing my workforce first, however I am not in that workforce extra. What I say now is not a mirrored image of them any extra. Now my phrases do not affect the workforce in any respect. I communicate for myself.”