3 biggest controversies in Tim Paine's career

Former Australia skipper Tim Paine announced his retirement from first-class cricket after a career that spanned 18 years. The 38-year-old played his last match against Queensland, scoring 42 and 3*.

His international career was in the spotlight when he was announced as the Test captain of Australia in the wake of the Sandpaper-gate saga. He had a huge responsibility on his shoulders and the wicketkeeper took up the challenge really well. He commanded the respect of his teammates and led them to retaining the Ashes in England in 2019.

However, his career was quite eventful. In this piece, we explore the 3 biggest controversies the former captain was involved in.

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#1 Text-gate

Tim Paine lost his captaincy and his place in the Aussie team after the text-gate scandal

Tim Paine stepped down as the captain of the Australian Test team following the exposure of lewd text messages that he sent to a female colleague at Cricket Australia. These messages became public in 2021, before the start of the last Ashes series.

It also came out that Cricket Australia had investigated him for these messages during the 2017-18 season, but didn't act strongly on it.

The former Australia Test skipper “deeply regretted” the incident and said he was “enormously” grateful to his wife and family for their forgiveness.

"Today, I announced my decision to stand down as the captain of the Australian men’s Test team. It’s an incredibly difficult decision, but the right one for me, my family, and cricket,” cricket.com.au quoted Paine as saying.

Tim Paine didn't just lose his captaincy but also his place in the team due to this scandal. He was replaced by Pat Cummins as the skipper and Alex Carey as the wicketkeeper of the Australian Test team.

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#2 Showing dissent to an umpire, SCG 2021

Tim Paine watches on as India captain Ajinkya Rahane embraces Ravichandran Ashwin after India managed to draw the Sydney Test

India pulled off a famous draw against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground in the memorable 2020-21 Border Gavaskar Trophy. Tim Paine did not have the best game as a leader and keeper, particularly in the 4th innings of the Test match.

He was involved in an on-field verbal altercation with spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, telling the latter as he batted to save the Test, "Can't wait to get you to Gabba." He also, at one point, called the Indian cricketer a "D**khead."

Paine criticized the umpire's decision after an unsuccessful DRS review against Chesteshwar Pujara on Day 3. The match referee fined him 15 percent of the match fee for dissent. He also received a demerit point for breaching Level 1 of the ICC Code of Conduct.

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#3 Sledging Virat Kohli, 2018-19

Virat Kohli was the best player in the world in 2018. He seemed to conquer all conditions and score big runs across formats. However, that did not make Tim Paine overawed by his presence.

He was constantly engaged in verbal duels with the former Indian skipper and tried to get under his skin. Umpire Nigel Llong had to intervene during the Perth Test. He asked them to get on with it and focus on the game.

Things didn't turn out well for Pain eventually as his team suffered their first-ever home series loss to India in that contest.