Australia’s Ashes preparations have been thrown into chaos after captain Tim Paine quit with immediate effect in the wake of a vile sexting scandal.
The Paine debacle is just the latest controversy to rock Cricket Australia, and it comes three years after the governing body vowed to clean up its act in the wake of Sandpapergate.
Incredibly, Paine’s lewd text messages – many of which are too raunchy to publish – also occurred in 2018 and were covered up by Cricket Australia despite their promise to change just three months earlier.
Paine held a press conference at 2.30pm on Friday where he tearfully apologised and announced he would step down.
‘It’s an incredibly difficult decision, but the right one for me, my family, and cricket,’ he said.Paine is available for selection for The Ashes series, but his place in the team hangs by a thread.
The entire Ashes series, which begins on December 8, is set to begin under a cloud, with English cricket also in turmoil amid a racism scandal at Yorkshire.
Azeem Rafiq rocked the world of sport with allegations of racism in cricket at a damning parliamentary session on Tuesday, which led to MPs warning the England and Wales Cricket Board to get its house in order over ‘institutional racism’ in cricket.
Australia’s Test cricket captain Tim Paine, a father-of-two who has been married to his wife Bonnie (pictured together) for five years, has quit as captain amid a shock sexting scandal
Paine’s wife Bonnie was aware of the messages at the time but chose to stick by him
Paine announced his resignation in a statement on Friday and held a teary press conference
Paine, https://birminghamliceclinics.com/ 36, sent a photo of his penis to a female co-worker along with a stream of lewd text messages back in 2017
In shocking testimony, Rafiq broke down in tears as he made racial discrimination claims against Tim Bresnan, Matthew Hoggard, Alex Hales, Gary Ballance and David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd.The spin bowler turned racism whistleblower also claimed the word P*** was ‘used constantly’ during his time at Yorkshire CCC as he gave explosive testimony to MPs.
In one shocking claim, he gave a harrowing account of having red wine forced down his throat by older players at his local team when he was 15 and a devout Muslim – before he drank more heavily from 2012 ‘to try to fit in’.
Rafiq has since been forced to confront his own past shortcomings after The Times uncovered a Facebook exchange in 2011 with former Warwickshire and Leicestershire player Ateeq Javid, in which he used anti-Semitic slurs.
Cricket Australia, meanwhile, were made aware of Paine’s sexting scandal just three months after he was appointed captain in the wake of Sandpapergate in 2018.
He was chosen to leads his country in all forms of the game after previous captain Steve Smith, as well as David Warner, was banned for 12 months from international and domestic cricket, while Cameron Bancroft was hit with a nine-month suspension.
Married father-of-two Paine was then investigated 12 weeks later by the governing body after the woman complained but, incredibly, he was cleared of misconduct and the matter was kept a secret.
Paine, 36, sent a photo of his penis to a female co-worker along with a stream of lewd text messages.
‘Will you want to taste my d**??F**k me, I’m seriously hard,’ one of the messages sent to the Cricket Tasmania employee read.
The lewd messages were sent on November 22 and 23, 2017, the eve and morning of the first Ashes Test at the Gabba in Brisbane.
‘I spoke to my wife at the time and am enormously grateful for their forgiveness,’ Paine said
Bonnie is a cosmetic surgery aesthetic nurse at Sanctum Medical Aesthetics in Hobart
<div class="art-ins mol-factbox news floatRHS" data-version="2" id="mol-18470c20-490b-11ec-9e54-d7096af7e0d3" website Australia are back in the gutter AND covering up again
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