Cricket Tasmania has launched an extraordinary attack on Cricket Australia, slamming the governing body for its treatment of former captain Tim Paine.
Paine on Friday dropped a bombshell in quitting the Test captaincy, as a sexting scandal from 2018 came to light.
A former Cricket Tasmania employee had accused Paine of sending her sexually explicit text messages and a photo of his penis. Cricket Australia had been made aware of the allegations in early 2018 but Paine last week got wind the scandal was about to be picked up by media, and he resigned.
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Cricket Tasmania, though, released a statement today firing both barrels at the country’s top cricket administrators.
“In conversations I have had in recent days it is clear that the anger amongst the Tasmanian cricket community and general public is palpable,” Cricket Tasmania chairman Andrew Gaggin said.
“Tim Paine has been a beacon for Australian cricket over the past four years and instrumental in salvaging the reputation of the national team after the calamity of Cape Town (ball tampering scandal).
“Yet, at a time when CA should have supported Tim, he was evidently regarded as dispensable. The treatment afforded to the Australian Test captain by Cricket Australia has been appalling, and the worst since Bill Lawry over 50 years ago.
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“The Cricket Tasmania board reaffirmed its view that Paine should not have been put in a position where he felt the need to resign over an incident that was determined by an independent inquiry at the time to not be a breach of the Code of Conduct and was a consensual and private exchange that occurred between two mature adults and was not repeated.”
Paine returned from neck surgery yesterday and took six catches behind the stumps for Tasmania’s second XI.
The following day he was out lbw for 1.
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