Khawaja says player used super glue on the ball in Sheffield Shield game

Usman Khawaja says ball tampering was common at Sheffield Shield level and the Victorians were the best at it.Following his explosive claims that all Australian players and staff knew about the ball tampering during the South Africa tour of 2018, Khawaja has made a further claim that tampering was common at Sheffield Shield level."The Victorians were probably the best at it. The MCG used to be dead and flat. Reverse swing and a bit of spin was the only way you could win a game there," Khawaja wrote in his new book Sabr, which is set to be released to the public on Tuesday."I personally never tampered with a ball — in terms of scratching it or anything — but I knew everything that was going on and I wasn't against it which made me complicit."The Victorians of that 2000s and 2010s era were genius at it. Throwing it into the wicket and doing other dark arts to rough it up and make the shiny side relatively shinier. It was all fair game."Khawaja named former Australian ODI fast bowler Mick Lewis as someone who was caught out changing the state of the ball.Mick Lewis was caught raking the ball across concrete in 2016. (Supplied)"It was no surprise when, years later, Victoria's bowling coach, Micky Lewis, was caught on cameras scraping the ball in the gutter when it got hit for a boundary. This kind of stuff was very normal," Khawaja wrote."There were plenty of times we hoped a spinner got hit for a six so someone could fetch the ball and scrub it while no one was watching and we could reverse swing it."To be honest, everyone knew what was going on in those teams I played in growing up. So whether you did it personally or not we were all complicit. The world game was the same. Reverse swing on those older, flatter Test wickets was how you won the matches, come day four and five.''The former Australian Test batter also claimed an unnamed player had used super glue to tamper with the ball."One of the players had super glue on his towel,'' Khawaja wrote about his first year in Sheffield Shield."He'd get the ball on the rough side and scrub it against the dried-up super glue. It worked a treat and the ball would always reverse."Khawaja's claim about the prevalence of ball tampering matches comments made by former Australian coach Darren Lehmann on ABC Sport's Summer Grandstand on Saturday.Lehmann, who has joined the ABC's Cricket Podcast as co-host this season, said ball tampering had been a "big part of the game" until the Australians were caught in South Africa."You do know ball tampering is going on because it's been happening for 150 years," Lehmann said."I can only speak to what I know, and I know ball tampering was a big part of the game of cricket. Now it is obsolete.Darren Lehmann stood down as Australian coach after Cape Town. (AP: Halden Krog)"That doesn't make it right either, but that's the case, and we paid a heavy price for that."Khawaja has been on the media trail promoting his book for the past two weeks, but the chapter about ball tampering had been redacted until Saturday morning.The batter has been criticised for sitting on the information for eight years, however Khawaja defended the timing in a social media post while saying he felt he had not thrown anyone "under the bus" with his revelations. Cricket Australia has continuously denied all players and staff knew about the South African ball tampering.