Former Australia leg-spinner Shane Warne said the time is right for fast bowler Pat Cummins to succeed Tim Paine as captain of the Test team and blood Josh Inglis as the side’s next wicketkeeper.

Paine resigned on Friday after media revelations that he had been investigated and cleared over sexually explicit text messages sent to a female former colleague four years ago.

Vice-captain Cummins, 28, has taken 164 wickets in 32 Tests for Australia since making his debut in 2011.

“For me, the time is right to make Pat Cummins captain, something I thought even before the events of Friday unfolded,” Warne wrote in Australia’s The Daily Telegraph on Sunday.

“The poster boy, respected and loved the world over, Pat Cummins should now be named captain, and either Matt Wade, Josh Inglis or Alex Carey should get their chance to come in and play Paine’s role in the Test team.

“Inglis gets my vote. He’s got silky smooth hands behind the stumps, he’s a 360 degree player with the bat and coming off three first class hundreds last season for Western Australia. He’s a great team man who I saw first hand at the London Spirit this year. He’s 26. Get him in.”

Warne, who has previously criticised Paine’s captaincy, praised the 36-year-old’s leadership after he was appointed captain in place of Steve Smith in the aftermath of the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa in 2018.

“It was sad to see what happened last Friday on so many levels and the circumstances in which Tim was forced to stand down. I really feel for him, what he’s going through, and what his family is going through,” Warne added.

‘Have moved on’

Paine’s wife Bonnie Maggs is “frustrated” that the ‘sexting scandal’ came into the public domain recently, saying she has already forgiven her husband and it is injustice that the matter is still dragging on. Maggs, who married Paine in 2016 and has two children with him, said as a family they had “put the matter to bed” and moved on in life.

“I have had my time of getting angry, and venting, and to get upset, and we fought and we talked, and then we both decided to move on with life, and do it together,” she said, speaking to News Corp alongside her husband.

“I feel a bit frustrated that it’s all been brought up and aired in the public when we’d put it to bed years ago. I have moved forward since then. I feel like there is a lot of injustice for it being dragged out again.”