A ‘MACHO’ MAN WITH SKELETONS IN HIS CUPBOARD
Paine was squeaky-clean pick to restore Aussies’ battered reputation… now he’s another shamed captain quitting in tears
Tim Paine was supposed to be mr nice Guy, the squeaky-clean, acceptable face of australian cricket perfectly qualified to drag the reputation of the Baggy Green out of the gutter in the aftermath of the Sandpaper-gate scandal. Well, that went well.
it has taken a lot for english cricket’s race crisis to be knocked off the top of the game’s news agenda this week — at least temporarily. But somehow the aussies managed it yesterday with yet another disgraced captain resigning in tears.
Paine was never actually what australia thought he would be. instead of being the safe pair of hands they desperately needed, he became a figure of fun who did not contribute much as a batsman, wicketkeeper or indeed captain.
You only have to remember the complete mess Paine made of his tactics, and his hapless use of DRS when Ben Stokes was winning the Headingley Test of 2019 single-handedly, to realise a man without a century in 35 Tests was no mike Brearley.
Paine spent most of his time trying to come across as a macho aussie but instead tied himself up in verbal knots, like confusing the wisdom of David icke for Winston Churchill before the 2019 ashes. Or telling Ravichandran ashwin, ‘Wait till we get you to Brisbane’, when australia played india this year. That went well, too.
and, with the sweetest of ironies, Paine’s last real gaffe came when he showed a complete lack of empathy to a fellow professional at a time when england were understandably concerned about australia’s draconian Covid regulations by saying, ‘The first Test will start at Brisbane on December 8 whether Joe Root is there or not.’
The england captain will be at the Gabba, don’t worry about that, Tim, but surely you won’t be now. For almost the most laughable part of yesterday’s all too familiar emotional, staged apology was the bit about Paine still being available for selection for the ashes. That is, if he can recover from a swollen disc. Truly, you could not make it up.
He was not good enough when australia appointed him for wont of credible alternatives, when accusations of cheating were hanging over australia more than three years ago, and he certainly isn’t good enough now. alex Carey and matthew Wade are far better alternatives as keeper-batsmen.
But tempting as it is to indulge in schadenfreude at the old enemy’s misfortune so close to the first Test — and how welcome it is australia will be wrapped up in their own scandal rather than concentrating on england’s when battle begins — there is a very serious side to the emergence of the skeleton in Paine’s cupboard.
For Cricket australia stand accused of a cover-up that, with echoes of the revelations that have rocked english cricket this week, suggest deeply ingrained cultural problems at the heart of another of cricket’s most powerful nations.
Paine was made captain in march 2018 after Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft had carried the can for the ball-tampering against South africa in Cape Town that, implausibly, nobody else was said to know anything about.
and it was not until three months later, it is claimed, that Cricket australia and Paine’s home state of Tasmania were made aware of the allegations of sexual harassment against the country’s captain by a former Cricket Tasmania employee.
an investigation was carried out but surely someone within the governing body must have realised it had to be made public. it is not good enough now to say Paine was exonerated because it was always likely to come back to bite them when it most hurt.
instead, this is another example of cricket sweeping unacceptable behaviour under the carpet. and yesterday was far, far too late for the aussie board to say they did not condone Paine’s behaviour.
They must have condoned it in 2018. They must have considered their attempts to build a more wholesome ‘brand’ under Paine, and a true Baggy Green devotee in coach Justin Langer, more important than doing what is right by the game and the woman involved.
The bottom line is that Cricket australia rightly punished Smith, Warner and Bancroft when their cheating was exposed, but stuck with Paine because he was meant to be a good family man when they knew about this sordid affair.
How the words of Paine when he became captain must make the whole of australia wince now.
‘We want to build a culture that makes people want to be better and produce not only better cricketers, but better people,’ he preached. ‘We know what’s right and we know what’s wrong. and we’ll be holding each other accountable.’
Turns out, little more than three months earlier on the morning of the first ashes Test, he had been sending a woman a ‘sexually explicit, unwelcome and unsolicited photograph of his genitals, in addition to graphic sexual comments’. now, with less than
three weeks to go before the first test, Australia have to find a new captain and the feel-good factor generated by their shock victory in the twenty20 world Cup last week has been dissipated.
their best candidate is probably steve smith, but it would take a spectacular lack of self-awareness for Australia to go back to the 32-year-old now.
More likely is the appointment of a man who appears a genuinely good guy, Pat Cummins, even though he will have enough to worry about trying to stay fit to spearhead their attack through five demanding tests.
Meanwhile, Australia’s peculiar experiment in attempting to turn Paine into a leader worthy of following the legendary likes of ian Chappell, steve waugh and ricky Ponting is over.
But, rather than lifting the urn again and going out in a blaze of glory, it is in a far more unexpected and unsavoury way than they can possibly have imagined.