DREAMS DO COME TRUE

Tassie’s Tim named Aussie captain ... just months after he was playing club cricket

TIM Paine’s remarkable transformation from cricket’s scrapheap to the top of the pile is complete — with the 33-year-old Australia’s 46th Test skipper.

Paine joins Ricky Ponting to become the second Tasmanian to lead the national side, and the first from Hobart.

His naming as the replacement for Steve Smith, sacked for ball-tampering, caps a remark- able few months for the wicketkeeper — who was playing club cricket last year and was left out of the Tasmanian side at the start of this summer.

Former Australian captain Allan Border said: “He’s an excellent choice, he’s a very senior guy ... he’s been around the traps, (and) he’s a big character.”

TIM Paine’s recovery from his own personal demons and battles of self doubt will steel the country’s newest Test captain to deal with the fallout from Australia’s cricket crisis.

Paine’s remarkable transformation from cricket’s scrapheap was completed yesterday when the 33year-old was officially named Australia’s 46th Test skipper.

He joins Ricky Ponting as the only Tasmanian to lead the national Test side, and the first from Hobart.

Paine’s first assignment will be to galvanise a dressing room which has splintered in the fallout from the balltampering scandal. The fourth Test against South Africa starts at The Wanderers tomorrow.

Disgraced former captain Steve Smith, vice-captain

He has the temperament and the perspective to be a really good leader for Australia. CRICKET TASMANIA CEO NICK CUMMINS

David Warner and batsman Cameron Bancroft were last night on a plane back home, with Warner and Smith having both been slugged with 12month bans.

Paine has been thrown into the cauldron to not only lead a side looking to square the four-match series, but to also begin the process of repairing the fractured relationship between the sport and the public.

And it is his own fightback from a broken finger first suffered in 2010 — which required seven surgeries and threatened to end his career — which will have him equipped to handle the spotlight.

“He is a natural leader, and a hard-nosed leader,” former Tigers coach Tim Coyle said of Paine.

“His own journey sets him up very well, he has been through some major highs and some major lows.

“He has come out the other end a very well-rounded, mature hardened cricketer. He has a good cricket brain and is a good communicator, the ingredients are all there for him to cope with this role.”

At the end of the 2016-17 season, Paine’s 17-year association with Tasmania appeared over, with the old administration making it plainly clear they were mov- ing in a different direction.

Paine had been overlooked as first choice Sheffield Shield gloveman at the start of the summer for Jake Doran, and while he returned after the axing of coach Dan Marsh, a job offer in Melbourne from sporting goods firm Kookaburra was on the table.

However, following a mass clean-out in which Nick Cummins and Adam Griffith were installed as new chief executive and coach, it was made clear Paine was a required man.

“As someone who was outside Tasmanian cricket, we were always surprised that he had fallen out of favour because he was so highly re- garded across Australia as a great gloveman and a great batsman,” Cummins said.

“When I first started, as we were about to go through a pretty significant rebuild, the importance of having senior players around to help that next generation come through is vital.

“For me, he was a very important part of our future.”

The complication came when Matthew Wade — at the time the incumbent Australian ’keeper — announced he was returning to his home state after 10 years in Victoria.

Wade was the No.1 choice with the gloves at the start of this summer, again relegating Paine until he was picked as a batsman- only for the third Shield match.

When Paine scored an un-beaten 70 thehe week before Aus-Australia’s Ashes squad was selected, it sealed his remarkable resurgence.

“It is an amazing journey, it is how different people assess things,” Coyley said.

“At the end of thee day I think the most important thing that comes out it is ‘ Painey’ never lost belief he could still be playing at that level.”