Candice Warner called out Cricket Australia’s double standards in letting Tim Paine stay in the Test squad as a player even after he resigned from the captain’s post following the sexting scandal earlier this month.
Tim Paine is expected to draw a lot of flak from English fans during the Ashes if he is picked in the Australian XI (AFP Photo)
HIGHLIGHTS
- Tim Paine quit as Australia’s Test captain after being named in a sexting scandal
- The 36-year-old will be available for selection as a player in next month’s Ashes series in Australia
- Australia and England will lock horns in the five-Test series staring in Brisbane from December 8
David Warner’s wife Candice has expressed concerns over Cricket Australia’s handling of the situation regarding the Tim Paine sexting scandal which has rocked the cricketing fraternity since the news broke earlier this month.
Paine had to resign from Test captaincy after media revelations he had been investigated and cleared over sexually explicit text messages sent to a female former colleague at Cricket Tasmania in 2017.
But the 36-year-old will be available for selection as the team’s wicketkeeper in the upcoming Ashes series Down Under which is what worries Candice as she called out the cricket board’s double standards being set for the captain as compared to other players.
“They’re (Cricket Australia) basically saying that it’s not OK for an Australian cricket captain to send these messages, but it’s OK for an Australian player. As a wife of an Australian player, that is slightly concerning and it does make me worry,” Candice told 2GB radio.
England fans are expected to have a go at Paine during the five-Test series, like they did against David Warner and Steve Smith after they returned to the national team during the 2019 Ashes after serving out their one-year bans for their involvement in the 2018 Cape Town Test scandal.
Candice said her husband had used the fan abuse as motivation to bounce back stronger on the field during that troubled phase but she isn’t sure how Paine will cope with the pressure against the Barmy Army if he is picked in the Australian playing XI.
“I don’t know how Tim Paine will handle it, or if he will have to handle it. But in regard to David and myself, you’ve got to look at it in a certain way.
“I know David looks at it as, ‘If they’re singing about me, they’re worried about me.’ So David uses it as a fuel to fire him up and get going. It is how you want to take it. It can affect people,” Candice said.
Australia and England will lock horns in the five-Test series staring at the Gabba in Brisbane from December 8.
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