“Sometimes your actions from previous years come back to haunt you” - Brad Hogg on Tim Paine’s sexting scandal 

Former Australian cricketer Brad Hogg has opined that Tim Paine should have been more forthright about his involvement in sexting in 2017, which has cost him the Test captaincy.

In a shocking development, Paine resigned as Australia’s Test captain on Friday after it was revealed he had sent lewd messages to a co-worker back in 2017. The 36-year-old was investigated by Cricket Australia (CA) and Cricket Tasmania in 2018 and cleared of any misconduct.

Lamenting the controversy has undone some of the good Paine did as Australia’s Test leader in the period after the ball-tampering scandal, Hogg said on his YouTube channel:

“Sexting scandal has put a dampener on a career that helped turn Australian cricket culture around. It is disappointing that it has ended like this but sometimes your actions from previous years come back to haunt you.”

The 50-year-old added that Pat Cummins should take over the Test captaincy and also stated that he doesn’t see Paine making it to the Ashes squad as a wicketkeeper-batter. Hogg commented:

“They (Australian cricket) have got to move on. I think Pat Cummins is going to be the new captain. Don’t think Paine will play in the Ashes. I think they will go to (Josh) Inglis.”

Under Paine’s captaincy, Australia retained the Ashes in England but were defeated at home in consecutive Test series’ by India.

Brad Hogg explains why Cricket Australia swept Tim Paine’s sexting controversy under the carpet

While Hogg did not back Cricket Australia’s decision to keep Paine’s sexting issue under wraps, he pointed out that situations literally forced them to do so. He explained:

“The sexting took place in 2017 but it didn’t come to Cricket Australia management’s attention till midway through 2018. At that stage, it was a tormentous period for Australian cricket. There were so many issues on a negative sense that the public weren’t liking about Cricket Australia. So they thought they had to sweep it under the carpet. They already had the sandpaper gate and now (they thought) what do they do with the player they had just made captain of Australian cricket.”

Paine was appointed the full-time Test captain of Australia in the aftermath of ‘Sandpapergate’, which resulted in one-year bans for Steve Smith and David Warner.