Former Australia cricket team captain Tim Paine set to play first match since sexting scandal

Former Australia captain Tim Paine is set to play his first top-level game as a sexting scandal has ended his international career, in which the wicketkeeper was included in Tasmania’s squad for a Sheffield Shield tie on Tuesday.

Paine stepped down as Test captain last November on the eve of the Ashes campaign against England, when obscene messages sent to a female colleague were about to be made public in 2017.

A week after the bombings were announced, Paine had taken a break from all forms of cricket for “for the foreseeable future”, amid concerns about a player’s mental well-being previously cleared.

But he never retired and was named in Tasmania’s 13-man squad for their Shield match against Queensland in Brisbane starting Thursday.

Paine is set to take on the gloves with Matthew Wade in the Aussies ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup later this month, and will face a Queensland team boasting former Test colleagues Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labuschagne.

The 37-year-old is training with the Tasmanian state team as a contracted player, and returned to lower-level cricket with his club side last weekend.

Paine was appointed to repair Australia’s reputation after the 2018 “sandpaper-gate” ball-tampering scandal that rocked world cricket and cost Steve Smith the captaincy.

Originally published at Pen 18