Cricket Australia CEO Nick Hockley says he wants Tim Paine to return to the country’s test squad while Paine has taken time out of the sports to focus on his mental health after a sexual scandal.
Cricket Australia CEO Nick Hockley has said that he wants to see again Tim Paine “Playing and performing” for Australia.
Australian former skipper Paine has taken time out of the sports to focus on his mental health.
Paine’s decision to take a mental health break comes a week after he stepped down from his role following a sexual scandal. Pat Cummins was named as a new Australian leader after Paine resigned.
“Would love to see him play again, for both his state and for Australia,”
Hockley told SEN.
“We want to see him back out there, playing and performing, as quickly as possible.”
Following Paine’s decision to quit, there were speculations that he might never play for Australia again as a wicket-keeper batsman was expected to retire at the end of this summer.
Cricket Australia also received a lot of flak for the way it handled the issue with Cricket Tasmania chair Andrew Gaggin calling it “appalling” and “the worst since Bill Lawry over 50 years ago.”
Hockley said it was Paine’s call to quit as a captain and “that was a decision that the board felt was appropriate” and it was trying to support him.
“The head coach has been down to see him, we’ve had members of our high performance set up go down to Tassie. The Tasmanian cricket community has put their arms around him,”
said Hockley, who was appointed chief executive on an interim basis in 2020 before being made permanent a year later.
“We are all very, very concerned – to make sure that Tim is well supported. A lot of respect for Tim for owning his mistake and our job now is to support him.”
