Tim Paine defends Johnson and Bailey in emotional spat

Tim Paine has backed George Bailey following an extraordinary attack on David Warner and the selector by former teammate Mitchell Johnson but defended the bowler’s questioning of the selection process.

Australia World Cup Cricket training at Adelaide Oval. George Bailey and Mitchell Johnson. Photo Sarah Reed.

 

Tim Paine has backed George Bailey following an extraordinary attack on David Warner and the selector by former teammate Mitchell Johnson but defended the bowler’s questioning of the selection process.

Johnson slammed the decision to allow Warner to nominate a retirement date and questioned if Bailey was too close to his former teammate to be making a call on his career.

Paine says it is obvious there are strains between Johnson and Warner.

“Mitch raises some great points. Statistically, David hasn’t been playing well and would other people be getting the run he’s getting now? Probably not,” he said on his SEN breakfast program.

“But in my opinion, he’s got credits in the bank because he is one of the all-time greats.

“I didn’t agree with it all but I found myself reading it and asking myself the question and that’s basically want you want in an article.

“I think you can read between the lines that he and Davey don’t get along… I think they’re just different people, just from what I’m reading.”

The opening batter will retire from Test cricket after the Sydney Test and many argue it is time he was moved on now, but Bailey defended the move to select him saying he was in the best XI players.

Johnson wrote that Warner does not deserve to be in the team and made reference to his role in the sandpaper scandal, noting he ends his career under a lifetime leadership ban and suggesting fans could wave sandpaper at his final matches.

Warner, Steve Smith and Cam Bancroft were all punished for their role in the 2018 scandal, Warner was given an opportunity to lift the lifetime ban but withdrew from the appeals process last year because it risked distracting from the Test summer.

In an article for the West Australian, Johnson pointed out that Bailey had left decisions about his friend Paine to the other selectors and asked if the selector had come into the job “too quickly” and was “too close to some of the players”.

Paine, who is a friend and business partner of Baileys, accepted the premise of the article, but said some points were lost because of the “personal nature” of the attack.

“I can only comment on when I dealt with George. Anything that we had cricket related, retirement related, we were always talking when that might be,” Paine said on his SEN breakfast program.

“The difference with this one was it wasn’t cricket related, the ending of my career. George had a little bit of a conflict of interest, so the professional thing to do was to withdraw himself from that conversation.

“Not only are we close friends, he knows my family, he knows everything in my life… there was a lot of other sensible people sitting around the table from Cricket Australia who were having discussions.

“So that was fine by me, I don’t think it was a courage thing. George and I would always have back and forth and (selector) Tony Dodemaide and (high performance manager) Ben Oliver and (former coach) Justin Langer about when I might retire and how were are going to handle it.

“Everyone was on the same page with that but this was a different unique situation and I think George coming out of that was the sensible and professional thing to do.

“100 per cent (he would have been involved if it was a cricket decision), he was, it was always open dialogue.”

The former Australian captain said he did not think that Bailey, who was named chairman of selectors in August 2021 after retiring the year before, took on the job too soon.

“I think a lot of his (Johnson’s) article, he raised some pretty valid points. The George stuff I didn’t love, I thought that was a bit unnecessary, but was George too quickly from a player to a selector? It’s a valid question.

“He obviously thinks he was. I don’t, I worked with George and I think anyone who knows George would never question his integrity or his professionalism or ability to do that job… you look at the success they’ve had as a team, you can’t question that.

“But it is a fair question. He did go very quickly from a player to a coach, he is friends with a lot of those players.

“I think the points around the stats and his position in the team and him getting a bit of extra time were probably ruined a bit by the personal nature of it and bringing sandpaper back into it and saying David was a person who used his leadership position for power and stuff like that, I played with David and he certainly didn’t do that.”

Paine praised Johnson for having the courage to write the article.