However, Payne returned to cricket for Tasmania in the Sheffield Shield. Although he did not have a contract with the party. But joined the team and scored only 156 runs in seven innings. Payne made his debut for Tasmania in the domestic league in 2005. After making his debut in the national team in 2009, he played 35 Tests and an equal number of ODIs for Australia.”He’s a fantastic player,” Tasmanian captain Jordan Silk said after saying goodbye to cricket. We will certainly miss him a lot behind the stumps. I don’t think Australia will have a wicketkeeper as good as Tim Paine. Paine could not play his last domestic league match. Paine’s team Tasmania drew the match against Queensland. Tim Paine scored only 45 runs in two innings in that match.

Renee Ferguson, 47, had missed the deadline to file her case against her former employer by almost three years and was seeking an extension of time in the Federal Court. Ferguson, who worked as a receptionist at Cricket Tasmania (CT), alleged she was sexually harassed by Paine and CT employees during 2015-17.

Paine denied any wrongdoing and was investigated and cleared by Cricket Australia’s integrity unit in 2018 over lewd text messages he sent to Ferguson. CT and the employees also denied the allegations. Ferguson complained of sexual harassment to the Australian Human Rights Commission in 2018 but the complaint was terminated in November of that year.

She had until January 2019 to make an application to the Federal Court without requiring prior approval but failed to do so until November 2021, Justice Mordy Bromberg said in notes released by the court. Ferguson had attributed her delay in filing the case to a rapid deterioration in her “mental and physical health as well as her economic stability”.

“I am not satisfied that it is in the interests of the administration of justice to permit Ms. Ferguson to make her very late application,” he wrote. “Conscious of the significant media attention which has been given to this proceeding, I seek to emphasize that my decision is not a vindication of either Ms. Ferguson or TCA’s (Cricket Tasmania) version of events.”

Paine stepped down from the captaincy last November and took a break from cricket after the ‘sexting’ affair became known to the public.
In a separate matter, Ferguson has been accused of stealing money from Cricket Tasmania during her employment there and will face a court hearing in February.

‘Adaptable’ Mitchell looking forward to ‘cool challenge’ of batting at No. 5 Daryl Mitchell admitted having a moment when he feared the worst about his T20 World Cup prospects after fracturing his finger just weeks before the tournament, but he is confident ahead of his return to New Zealand’s middle order against Sri Lanka at the SCG.

Mitchell suffered the blow while batting in the nets before the tri-series involving Bangladesh and Pakistan in Christchurch. However, after being assessed it was decided to retain him in the squad having been assured he would be ready for the second game – the rain in Melbourne has now pushed that a few days later – and though the injury is not quite completely healed, it won’t impede him.

“When you are sitting in the X-ray room and you see a fracture in your hand, you think that’s probably the World Cup done,” Mitchell told ESPNcricinfo. “But we are really lucky that where the fracture is and the specialist gave us the timeframe to be back for game two, so it’s all gone to plan, and just looking forward to getting out there now.”

Mitchell took on the opening role in the last T20 World Cup after a last-minute change of tactics from New Zealand and carried them into the final with a brilliant, unbeaten 72 off 47 against England. This year, however, he has returned to the middle order, which is the position he will slot into – in place of Mark Chapman – at the SCG.

It’s where the majority of his T20 cricket has been played, but like Matthew Wade for Australia, his versatility is a huge asset should it be required. It’s the variety of situations thrown up by being in the middle order that he most thrives off.”That’s one of my skillsets, I guess, to be adaptable to different positions,” he said. “It comes down to my personality in some ways, I’m a competitor, I just want to get stuck into whatever role I’ve been given and try to win games. Whether that means batting one, or wherever else, I’ll happily do it with a smile on my face.

“I really enjoyed opening… but this role, the [No.] 5 positions, it’s never the same, which is quite a cool challenge in that there are some sticky situations you have to come into and there’s also some fun times as well.” Earlier this year Mitchell enjoyed a spectacular run of form in the Tests against England where he scored 538 runs, the most by a New Zealander in a three-match series, including three centuries. While the format is vastly different from the challenge he will face over the next couple of weeks, there is an overall mantra that Mitchell has for his cricket about not trying to overburden himself.

“I look back [on the England series] and it’s a culmination of a long time of learning your craft,” he said. “How you want to go about things, finding ways to succeed, then going through some phases to get to that position. For me, it’s about not trying too hard, remembering it is a game we play, and we are very lucky to be able to do it. If you keep enjoying the game, hopefully, some success will come.”

“Think about that. After everything that had happened in Cape Town, after all the headlines and bans and carry on,” the wicketkeeper wrote. “I was standing at the bowlers’ end in the next Test when a shot came up on the screen of a South African player at mid-off having a huge crack at the ball.”

Paine said the TV director immediately pulled the shot off the stadium screen. “We went to the umpires about it, which might seem a bit poor, but we’d been slaughtered and were convinced they’d been up to it since the first Test,” he wrote. “But the footage got lost. As it would.”

Cricket South Africa and the South Africa team were unable to provide immediate comment on Tuesday.
Though Cricket Australia (CA) sanctioned the three players, media have long speculated as to whether other members of the team were involved.
Bancroft last year told The Guardian that it was “self-explanatory” that Australia’s bowlers had to be aware of the ball-tampering.
Australia’s bowlers have denied any knowledge of the plan. Paine also denied the scheme was common knowledge in the dressing room but said the team should have taken responsibility as a whole rather than let the blame fall solely on the three players. “Everyone was a part of it to some degree – would it have worked out better for those three players if we had owned it as a team? I think it would have,” he said.

ABANDONED
Paine also wrote that he felt pressured to resign from the Test captaincy by a public relations consultant employed by CA. Paine stepped down in the wake of revelations he had been investigated by CA’s integrity unit in 2018 over a ‘sexting’ scandal involving a former Cricket Tasmania staffer.

Though Paine was cleared by the investigation, he said he felt “abandoned” by CA once the story became public. “I felt they were driven by the need to protect their image … They were hanging me out to dry.” CA declined to comment on the issue of Paine’s resignation but said it was glad the 37-year-old had returned to the game.

Paine ended a nearly year-long absence from elite cricket this month with his Tasmania return in the domestic Sheffield Shield.

“He started here as just a 16-year-old all those years ago and has been a part of our cricket ever since.” “He is training as a subcontracted player to get fit for club cricket, but if he proves to be anywhere near his best expect to see him playing state cricket again.” “All of Tasmania and I think most of Australia wants to see him finish his career on his own terms.”

Paine was set to lead Australia into the home Ashes series last year until the sexting allegations became public. He stepped down and was replaced by Pat Cummins.

The cricketer was accused by a former Cricket Tasmania receptionist of sending sexually explicit messages to her in 2017. Paine, who said the texting was consensual, had been cleared by an internal Cricket Australia investigation in 2018 which was not revealed to the public until late last year.