On what we know, Tim Paine did not have to resign as the captain of Australia's Test team.
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The Tasmanian cricketer made what was clearly a heartfelt apology on Friday and took full responsibility for his actions; not seeking once to divert blame.
It was a model for how you should, as a public figure, come clean and express contrition when you've done something wrong.
And yet the question that remains is what did he do that warranted his resignation?
In late 2017, Paine exchanged explicit text messages with a then Cricket Tasmania employee. Months later, after he became captain amid the fallout of the infamous ball-tampering, a complaint was made.
Cricket Tasmania chairman Andrew Gaggin said "an investigation ... determined the interaction was consensual, private, occurred on the one occasion only, was between mature adults and was not repeated".
While the matter was addressed with Paine, "because of the consensual nature of the actions it was determined that no further action was required or appropriate".
That should have left it as a personal matter between the woman concerned and Paine, and also between he and his wife.
Yet three years later it suddenly became public and in spite of having basically been exonerated at the time, he abruptly responded with his resignation.
It does not appear that he was pushed, with Cricket Australia making clear that "Tim felt it was in the best interests of his family and Australian cricket to take this decision to step down as captain".
Gaggin, meanwhile, had much to say on the woman involved in the sexting scandal, adding that she had been terminated from her position and made the complaint after criminal charges were laid against her.
In the wake of Paine's shock news, it did not take long for comparisons to be made with some of our political leaders.
Their actions in their personal lives don't seem to stop them from occupying some of the highest offices in the land, but the Test captain felt he had to go.
It speaks to the respect he returned to Australian cricket; and of a man who put his family and the game before himself.
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