Paine’s emotional farewell to cricket career

Former Australian Test captain Tim Paine has retired from all forms of domestic cricket, rounding out a turbulent 18-year career.

The news was made official with Paine receiving a guard of honour as he left the field at the Bellerive Oval following Tasmania’s draw with Queensland in the final round of the Sheffield Shield.

While Paine is yet to make a public announcement, it was reportedly made known to his Tasmania teammates that this would be his last first class match.

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While Paine did not speak to reporters after the match, Tasmania captain Jordan Silk confirmed the wicketkeeper-batter’s retirement.

“He’s been a phenomenal player,” Silk said.

“I think it’s around 22 years of professional cricket. It’s an incredible effort to have the longevity that he’s had.

“He’s certainly going to be missed behind the stumps. I’m sure a lot of guys who are playing now will say that there will never be another keeper as good as Tim Paine in Australia. So we’ve been incredibly blessed down here. And we wish him all the best in whatever he chooses going forward.”

Paine finishes his career having played 154 first-class matches including 35 Tests and 95 Sheffield Shield games.

He was promoted to the Test captaincy in the wake of the 2018 ball-tampering saga, and led Australia in 23 Test matches and five ODIs between 2018 and 2021.

Paine resigned as skipper on the eve of the 2021-22 Ashes series following the public release of explicit text messages from four years earlier.

In his autobiography which was published last year, The Price Paid, Paine said the 2017 text exchange with a Cricket Tasmania employee was “unspeakably (and) unforgivably stupid.”

Paine was subsequently dropped by Cricket Australia and Cricket Tasmania, however, despite being off-contract, played six more first-class matches for Tasmania across the 2022-23 season.

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