Cricket Australia (CA) CEO Nick Hockley has insisted that the wicketkeeper-batter Tim Paine has the full support of the CA and Tasmania cricket in these tough times and said that they all just want to see him "playing and performing" for Australia and Tasmania again.

Last month, Paine took an indefinite mental health break from the game after stepping down as Australia’s Test captain over a "sexting" scandal, which saw him sending inappropriate texts and pictures to a female co-worker in Tasmania in 2017.

Following his decision to stay away from cricket, there was speculation that Paine might never play for Australia again, and it is also being said that he was expected to retire at the end of this summer. However, the CA CEO has backed the cricketer back into action.

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Hockley told SEN: “Would love to see him play again, for both his state and for Australia. We want to see him back out there, playing and performing, as quickly as possible.”

On Paine’s call to quit as captain, the CA CEO said “that was his own decision that the board felt was appropriate” and they were just trying to support him all possible way.

Hockley signed off by saying, “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. 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 really support him.”

(With PTI Inputs)