diff --git a/templates/al2/provisioners/cache-pause-container.sh b/templates/al2/provisioners/cache-pause-container.sh
index 3cc817321..2bb719880 100755
--- a/templates/al2/provisioners/cache-pause-container.sh
+++ b/templates/al2/provisioners/cache-pause-container.sh
@@ -7,17 +7,20 @@ set -o pipefail
 AWS_DOMAIN=$(imds 'latest/meta-data/services/domain')
 ECR_URI="$(/etc/eks/get-ecr-uri.sh ${AWS_REGION} ${AWS_DOMAIN})"
 
-TAG="localhost/kubernetes/pause:0.1.0"
-EXPORT_PATH=/etc/eks/pause.tar
+PAUSE_CONTAINER_IMAGE="${ECR_URI}/eks/pause:3.5"
 
 sudo systemctl start containerd
-cache-pause-container -i "${ECR_URI}/eks/pause:3.5" -t ${TAG} -e ${EXPORT_PATH}
+cache-pause-container -i ${PAUSE_CONTAINER_IMAGE}
 sudo systemctl stop containerd
 
 # we also need to import the image into docker, which is still default on 1.23
 # and supportted below 1.25.
+# NOTE: there was some difficulty importing the same image exported by ctr, so
+# this part follows separately
 if vercmp ${KUBERNETES_VERSION} lt "1.25"; then
   sudo systemctl start docker
-  sudo docker image import ${EXPORT_PATH} ${TAG}
+  aws ecr get-login-password | sudo docker login --username AWS --password-stdin ${ECR_URI}
+  sudo docker pull ${PAUSE_CONTAINER_IMAGE}
+  sudo docker image tag ${PAUSE_CONTAINER_IMAGE} "localhost/kubernetes/pause:0.1.0"
   sudo systemctl stop docker
 fi