AT HOME WITH TIM

He might be the new Australian cricket captain, but life at home in suburban Horbart is very normal for Tim Paine.

IN a quiet Hobart suburb the man who was left holding the baby after Australian cricket’s most catastrophic event has been left holding the baby again.

Tim Paine and 11-monthold Milla get on like old mates.

Coffee (and bottle) in a cafe on Sandy Bay Rd in the morning, walk the dog on the leafy streets, little games and giggles during the day.

Quality father-and-daughter time. She’s gorgeous and carefree.

She’s in bed by 7pm. Dad’s in bed soon after, and only in those few quiet hours does he contemplate the extraordinary circumstances that led to him being crowned Australian cricket captain — the result of an Aussie ball-tampering scandal in the Third Test in South Africa that claimed the scalps of then captain Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft.

Tim’s wife, Bonnie, took off for Bali with some friends after they got back from the series in South Africa.

It was to give her a chance to process the death of her father, who died suddenly just before the Boxing Day Test.

“We’re a good team Milla and me,” Paine said.

“I enjoyed that time. She’s pretty laid-back, like me. It was the first time I’d spent a period of time with her, whereas Bonnie had that when I was away.

“For that 10 days I hardly thought about it (crisis) ...”

Paine was relaxed and relieved to be away from the terrible spotlight that burned the team in South Africa. He’s easing back into cricket, still spending a few days with Milla now that Bonnie’s back at work part-time and looking forward to flying to Brisbane to meet new coach Justin Langer on Monday for the first time since his appointment.

Laying in bed at night, Paine, like the character in the Talking Heads song, had to ask himself that recurring question: How did I get here?

This time last year Tim, Bonnie and the dog, Wilson, were about to pack up their lives — Milla was still looming — and move to Melbourne. He was throwing in cricket to take up a job with Kookaburra.

Sport hadn’t really worked out. Four tests were more than most played, but a series of broken fingers and decreasing returns had left him in a bad place.

He couldn’t get a game for Tasmania. The Baggy Green had been consigned to a dark place. A little like Paine himself.

“I didn’t like looking at it, I didn’t like seeing it when I felt so far away from it, particularly after the finger stuff,” he admits.

“During the operations I was fine, I thought I would get back, I’d be fine. But when that didn’t work out I didn’t like seeing it, that’s for sure. When I did have to get it out to move house or something I didn’t try it on or look at it, I put it away as quickly as possible.

“It just made me feel a little sad I think. It got to the stage where it pissed me off.”

It was a long time since he and the equally baby-faced Steve Smith had made their debuts at Lord’s in 2010. Smith went from strength to strength. He played 50 Tests and was elevated to the captaincy.

Paine went from bad to worse. In the seven years he had seven surgeries and eight pins inserted into a finger broken while batting in a charity game.

“I was that bloke who would have been a good cricketer but got injured,” he said.

Fate, as she does, intervened for Paine. Greg Chap- pell had urged him to accept Tasmania’s offer of a one-year contract, but he wasn’t convinced. Then a new regimen arrived and he decided to give it one more shot.

When the first games of the state season rolled around he wasn’t in the side again. Oh well.

When the first Test rolled around he was standing behind the stumps. There’s a calmness and steel that comes in the kit bag of every elite sportsman but Paine’s was honed at a rough local school which had a close relationship with the nearby juvenile detention centre and a dismal academic record.

Sport and an elder brother kept him out of scrapes.

His innate football and cricket talent elevated him to teams with older boys who

I’m really looking forward ... to England and

playing cricket because that’s what we need and then we can start to be proud

also looked out for him.

Paine’s home is comfortable, the study jammed with objects from the life of Bon- nie’s dad — a legend of the scientific community in Antarctica with the Australian Antarctic Division.

The neighbours — like Paine and the rest of the cricket world — are still processing the fact that Tim Paine is the captain of Australia.

“They’ve all been pretty positive,” he said. “A lot of people come up and say ‘well done’, are proud of the way I handled it and the way I have, I suppose, started my time as captain.

“It hasn’t been hugely different, which is good, it keeps me nice and grounded. I like it that way.”

The captaincy is a curious crown for Paine to wear. It came with thorns and tears. Anyone who was in the foyer of the Johannesburg hotel and saw his embrace of Smith as the fallen captain said his goodbyes couldn’t help but be moved.

A day later he was preparing to do his first press conference as captain when coach Darren Lehmann took him aside to say that he was leaving too.

“It was a bit of a mess that week,” Paine said. “I was proud to be captain of Australia, it’s not something I don’t respect, it was just that week was so tough and the circumstances were bizarre. It was hard for everyone. It was terrible for

them and none of us were in the mental space to be able to play a Test match. The result was a product of that.

“I’m really looking forward to getting to Brisbane (training camp) and getting to England and playing cricket because that’s what we need and then we can start to be proud.

“Right now I just feel like we are sitting still.”

Paine’s loyal. He still sees Smith, Warner and Bancroft as part of the broader group.

“Once they’ve served their sanctions they’ll be welcomed back into our team with no issues whatsoever,” he said.

“Everyone wants to move past South Africa. I’m trying to stay in contact as much as I can, particularly the two senior guys over the next month.

“In a way I see it as their team and I want to do the right thing by them, but I also want to move our culture and behaviour forward and I want them to be part of it.”

The journey starts properly on Monday when he flies to Brisbane to finally meet Langer.