Cricket Tasmania slams Cricket Australia for 'appalling' treatment of Tim Paine

Cricket Tasmania slammed national cricket governing body, Cricket Australia (CA), accusing them of treating Tim Paine in an appalling manner over his sexting scandal, which led to his resignation as Australia's Test skipper. Paine stepped down from his captaincy role, after his private text exchanges with a former Cricket Tasmania female employee in 2017, were made public last week.

Cricket Tasmania chair Andrew Gaggin expressed his views on the ongoing controversy by saying that CA hasn’t been fair to Paine and added that the state’s cricket community and the general public are miffed at the national governing body.

Tim Paine 'was evidently regarded as dispensable': Cricket Tasmania chair 

As per a report by AP, the Cricket Tasmania head mentioned that Tim Paine has been a beacon for Australian cricket ever since he was made the skipper of the Test team in 2018. Adding that he played an important role in salvaging the reputation of the national team, following the sand-paper row in Cape Town, Gaggin said,

“Yet, at a time when (Cricket Australia) 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.”

Former skipper Bill Lawry was dropped both as the Test skipper and player in the early 1970s, and he had found about his sacking from reporters instead of the team management.

Cricket Tasmania cleared Tim Paine of any code of conduct breach

The Paine's sexting scandal came to Cricket Tasmania’s notice in mid-2018, where the cricketer was cleared of any code of conduct breaches by Cricket Australia. As per the AP report, Gaggin added that the Cricket Tasmania board, which also included former Test player David Boon unanimously expressed their support for Tim Paine during their meeting on Monday.

Explaining the same, Gaggin said that the state cricket governing body feels Paine shouldn't have been put in a position where he needed to resign from his captaincy. He added the incident was determined by an independent inquiry where no breach of conduct was found and the consensual text exchange was done between two mature adults, which was never repeated.

(Image: AP)