JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - APRIL 03: Captain Tim Paine of Australia during day 5 of the 4th Sunfoil Test match between South Africa and Australia at Bidvest Wanderers Stadium on April 03, 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Photo by Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images)
Tim Paine has brought to light Cricket Australia's behind-the-scenes approach to the sexting scandal last November that triggered his position as the current Test captain at the time to be seized.
In a new autobiography titled The Price Paid, Paine outlines the nature in which the decision to terminate his duties as leader of the eleven came about due to the view of an outside hire overseeing the situation.
An unnamed person from a public relations firm took control of the meeting with Chief Executive Officer Nick Hockley taking a backseat in the conversation, which Paine admittedly described as "strange" thereafter.
“The consultant then said that the best way to get ahead of the story was if I stood down as captain," he wrote.
“I was stunned by that, so was James (Paine's manager, James Henderson).
“Who was this guy? What did he know about the circumstances? That was the first time anyone had mentioned me resigning as captain. There was no way I was doing that.”
With Hockley avoiding the face-to-face confrontation by third-wheeling the pair, Paine writes on posing the question to the CEO directly, 'Do you want me to resign as Test captain, Nick?'
After jumping around the question in a roundabout way according to the 37-year-old, the writing was seemingly on the wall as Hockley “couldn't give me a straight answer, or wouldn't. He kept talking around in circles".
“It was becoming obvious what Cricket Australia wanted me to do but they didn't have the courage to say it themselves, they were letting their hired consultant run the show," Paine continued.
“They'd held a gun to my head. I couldn't go on without their support.
“I felt they were driven by the need to protect their image, they'd got in someone to look after them and he'd decided that I had to be sacrificed to save them, they were hanging me out to dry,” he writes in the book.
“I was disappointed and I was tired of this. I was prepared to cop the flak for what I did, but in my mind Cricket Australia had abandoned me and made it look like they thought I'd sexually harassed someone and so everyone else would think that too. I felt like them flipping almost vindicated the story.
The handling of proceedings noticeably troubled Paine, especially after an investigation into the saga cleared him of any wrongdoing in an integral report that the CA was aware of and had ticked off.
“The thing that got me later was when Cricket Australia said they would have handled it differently to the way it was done back in 2017, but for that seven days or whatever it was, they were doing their level best to stop the story coming out. When it got out, they seemed to change their tune about it," he wrote.
Tasmania welcomed the return of Paine to their state side only recently, resuming his role as a wicket-keeper/batsman in the longer formatted Sheffield Shield clashes, which warmed the hearts of many fans of the game.