After a span of 18 months, Australia chief selector Trevor Hohns has finally opened up about the turn of events which led to Tim Paine becoming the national captain following the infamous ball-tampering saga.
Australian cricket was shaken to the core after cameras had caught Cameron Bancroft using sandpaper to alter the condition of the ball during the Cape Town Test against South Africa in March 2018. Subsequently, then captain Steve Smith and his deputy David Warner were given 12-month bans while Bancroft was handed a nine-month suspension under CA's Code of Conduct.
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For the final Test of that series at Wanderers, Paine was shouldered with the responsibility to lead Australia. And now Hohns has revealed what transpired in the dressing room.
“Within about five minutes we had made up our mind, and what led us to Tim was simply, we thought he was the right type of person - he was touted as a leader previously. We went through the other candidates that could possibly do it and immediately we just came up with Tim,” ESPNcricinfo quoted Hohns as saying.
“We went back to the dressing room, and it was announced that the boys David Warner and Smith would be standing down, and all I said was, ‘Tim, sorry mate, no notice, but you are the captain,” he added.
The tainted trio made a comeback to Test cricket during the recently held Ashes series in England. While Warner and Bancroft failed to make a mark in the iconic series, Smith aggregated 774 runs at an astonishing average of 110.57 with three tons to help Australia retain the urn on English soil for the first time since 2001.
“We are taking serious account of people’s personalities and their past history, whether there’s been any misdemeanors or what have you. You do not really know sometimes, but you do by being around them a fair bit, you get to know their personalities etc, etc - you hear a lot of things,” the Australia chief selector said.
“That is now coming into our selection process. But we will always go for the best players. There is no doubting that, and if anyone has an issue, then it’s up to us and team management to make them understand what the expectations are,” he further asserted.
