Tim Paine abruptly quit as Australian Test cricket captain on Friday over an explicit “private text exchange” with a female colleague in 2017 — a bombshell announcement just weeks before the Ashes series begins against arch-rivals England.
In her correspondence with Cricket Australia, the woman had said she was offended by “Mr Paine’s sexually explicit, unwelcome and unsolicited photograph of his genitals in addition to the graphic sexual comments”.
Paine took over the Test captaincy in 2018 in the wake of the Sandpaper-gate ball tampering scandal that rocked Australian cricket.
Previous captain Steve Smith and his deputy David Warner were forced to step down for their roles trying to alter the ball with sandpaper during a Cape Town Test.
They were suspended for a year from all cricket and stripped of their leadership roles, paving the way for Paine to take up the captaincy.
Cricket Australia chair Richard Freudenstein confirmed that it had investigated Paine’s matter at the time and found that there was no wrongdoing.
A few months later selectors went on to appoint Paine as captain of the scandal-ridden team regardless.
Twitter users were left shocked how Cricket Australia cleared the cricketer of any breach of CA’s code of conduct. The cricket board has now come under severe criticism for appointing Paine Australia captain despite being aware of the whole issue.
Here are the reactions:
‘This is sexual harrasment’
With AFP inputs