Gerard Whateley has offered his immediate thoughts on Tim Paine’s resignation as Australian Test captain.
Paine resigned shortly after 2.30 pm (AEST) after becoming embroiled in a sexting scandal with a former colleague at Cricket Tasmania.
The texts are from 2017 but were made public on Friday, with a visibly emotional Paine telling reporters he couldn’t continue on as Test skipper with the texts in the public sphere.
However, Cricket Australia has confirmed he will be available for selection in the upcoming Ashes series.
Whateley joined SEN’s Dwayne’s World immediately after Paine’s press conference ended to give his first-hand opinions on the matter.
“There will be a national sense of shock and trying to take it in and comprehend it, and then to forecast what happens next, it’s extraordinarily difficult to take in so instantly and rapidly,” he said.
Paine was cleared by Cricket Australia originally, however the texts being exposed to the Australian public changes the situation.
Whateley says additional information from Cricket Australia will be crucial to how the saga unfolds and whether Paine can indeed play again.
“We take our lead from Tim Paine initially, he felt like he couldn’t continue as captain once this was going to become public,” he continued.
“Having read Cricket Australia’s release to the Herald Sun that he was investigated at the time and cleared of wrongdoing under the code of conduct, that’s going to need further explanation to help us comprehend the severity of what happened or why there was no action that resulted from it.
“But because of the prestige of the office of Cricket Australia and the public nature of it, the requirement to speak routinely and not to have an issue lingering that would detract from either the position or the performance of the team, Tim’s taken that view and that’s immediately obvious, as soon as the story is published and you read the detail you go, ‘No, Tim won’t able to be captain in these circumstances’.
“Cricket Australia’s statement clearly says that he remains available for selection, and it doesn’t do anything to say that is under review, so this is where we will have to wait for more from Cricket Australia.
“What was the nature of the investigation? Why was he cleared? How is this not a breach of the code of conduct? If they were happy for him to play in 2018 or thereabouts, why would that change now?
“I still think it’s going to be very difficult for him to play, Cricket Australia says he remains available for selection, we take that literally in the minutes after this is happening.”
Former captain Steve Smith was disgraced when banished from the team in 2018 over the ball-tampering scandal, and Paine’s resignation continues a dirty trend for Australian cricket that concerns Whateley.
“The nature of it is stunning, it runs completely counter to the manner in which Tim has always conducted himself in the public sphere, he has been a tremendously dignified and respectful captain,” he added.
“When you put two together, that’s two Australian captains in succession who have had to leave office in disgrace, one for what happened on the field and one for what’s happened off-field.
“So that’s diabolical for the position that is the Australian captaincy, and that it’s happened two and a half weeks out from an Ashes series, while the cycle will spin violently for two or three days, this is not going to be resolved in two and a half weeks.
“So it will sit extremely heavily over Australian cricket going into the Ashes, keep in mind England cricket is in a full-blown crisis at the moment with the racism scandal that has been unearthed and their captain is not untouched by that, but that Australia’s captain would have to leave office so abruptly is jarring, to say the least.
However, SEN’s chief cricket commentator was grateful for the fact Australia has a ready-made replacement for Paine in Pat Cummins, but questioned if the former captain could play alongside him.
“Pat Cummins will captain, this is probably the only part of the timing which works.
“In recent months, but certainly within recent weeks, it had been determined within Australian cricket that Pat Cummins would be the next Test captain, whenever that time arose.
“The broad expectation was that Paine would retire at the end of this Ashes series rather than do the Test tours next year, and that there was the broadly held view that the leadership that Cummins has displayed behind the scenes through what has been a pretty rocky couple of months for the players and the leadership of the team, that had elevated him beyond all others and beyond the debate.
“It’s just as well that part has privately been resolved, because if we were to cast our minds back three months it was very uncertain who the next captain was going to be, and they were going to be making a shotgun decision.
“But I am sure that authorities had already got themselves to Pat Cummins as the next Test captain.
“They’re retched circumstances to take over in, but I have little doubt that it will now just be moved forward, he will captain Australia through the Ashes and it will be four months earlier than he might have assumed the job.
“That conversation will simply have to be had, if Tim Paine is in that team this lives as an entity and a being right through his presence, is it, in fact, better that be not be part of it?
“I can’t answer that question right now, but if I run my mind to the Gabba, in the minutes after (the press conference), I’m not sure I can see him behind the stumps.
“We have to know the details of what Cricket Australia did, and what the findings of their investigation were and if they were comfortable, is there any reason that would change now, or do you actually have to take the pragmatic approach around what does this look like day to day if he is the active Australian keeper?”
The Ashes begins in Brisbane on December 8.