Australia captain Pat Cummins on Friday said Usman Khawaja was "100 percent wrong" in claiming the whole team knew about "Sandpapergate", calling it "complete and utter nonsense".
The retired Khawaja reopened old wounds with the release of his autobiography this week and a chapter dealing with the 2018 ball-tampering scandal in South Africa that rocked world cricket.
In the book, the opener alleged that the whole team, including Cummins, knew about the plot to rough up the ball with sandpaper to make it swing.
The scandal centred around the third Test in Cape Town, but Khawaja also claimed the tactic was used in the second Test at Port Elizabeth.
A Cricket Australia probe concluded only David Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft were in the know, with all three sent home in disgrace and subsequently banned.
Smith was sacked as captain before Tim Paine took over and subsequently Cummins.
"When he says we all knew, if by that he means we knew sandpaper was going out on the field, he's 100 percent wrong," a candid Cummins said at a press conference.
"I said that consistently for the last eight years. I did not know that was happening.
"But I think Usman actually says things that are 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 and fellow bowlers Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon all denied publicly in a 2021 statement that they were aware of the plan.
Warner has this week strongly backed his close friend Khawaja's new version of events.
But Darren Lehmann, who was head coach at the time, denied any knowledge, as did former batting coach Graeme Hick who also rubbished Khawaja's allegations as "absolutely false".
Starc reiterated this week his stance that "we weren't aware of things being taken on the field".
Lyon and Hazlewood have remained silent, as have Smith and Bancroft.
Cummins accused Khawaja of being "flippant" with the way he dropped his bombshell claims eight years after the fact.
"Usman is a friend, but friends aren't casual with each other's lives and reputations," he said.
"In his book he's been casual with my life and the lives of many others and I think Australian cricket.
"I think the way that he's presented his story, I think he's done that in a very casual manner. And it affects a lot of people."
In a media blitz this week, Khawaja said he spoke in the dressing room after the Cape Town Test urging the team to take collective responsibility, rather than scapegoating Warner, Smith and Bancroft.
But Cummins said he had no recollection of this.
"I don't remember any conversation around collective responsibility. I don't remember any team meeting where he stood up and said, 'Let's own this as a team'," he said.
Cricket Australia has ruled out reopening their investigation with chairman David Boon on Thursday assuring Cummins that his job was safe, regardless.
Cummins admitted the culture of the team around 2018 had an ugly win-at-all-costs mentality, culminating in the Cape Town furore.
But he said since then it had been "absolutely brilliant".
"I didn't like the way we spoke to umpires, the opposition. I think there was a bit of an arrogance and a bit of an ugliness at times that didn't sit well with me as a young guy," he said.
"And now I'm captain, I have spent a lot of time making sure that that's not the case with this current Aussie team."
