Recalled Paine ready to push past barriers
TIM Paine limped in to the MCG dressingrooms on Wednesday night having batted for most of the day to make 71 not out amid a Tasmanian run-fest against Victoria.
Pre-destined to return to the Australian Test team, it would seem, Paine blunted the Bushrangers’ attack for so long he denied Matthew Wade – the now axed national wicketkeeper who was padded up to come in next – his chance to make the runs he needed to retain his spot.
At the time it seemed curious that Paine, 32, had been called away from the Cricket Australia XI, where he had been leading a bunch of kids against England, to play for Tasmania exclusively as a batsman.
More so because, as he revealed on his arrival to talk to a few reporters, a barefoot Paine revealed he was battling the foot injury plantar fasciitis.
“I’ve had it for a few months, but it only hurts at the end of a day’s play,” he said.
“It’s not 100 per cent, but it will like Brisbane more than Hobart. It doesn’t like the cold.”
This injury though – unlike all the finger injuries that cruelled what could have been a solid Test career when it began in 2010 – wasn’t bad enough for national selectors to overlook Paine, whom selection chairman Trevor Hohns said was “identified as an international player a long time ago”.
That was in 2009 and in two years Paine played four Tests, making his debut with current captain Steve Smith in 2010, and 26 one-day internationals. He made an ODI century in England.
But he hurt his right index finger badly in a charity match in 2010 and has endured six operations to fix it.
He fell off the national radar until now, and his re-inclusion has come in curious circumstances.
While surprised at his Test recall, Paine said he never thought he was a spent force at international level despite his lack of wicketkeeping with Tasmania.
He said he was confident he was more than ready to deliver on the promise he showed all those years ago.
“I’m a little bit surprised, but excited and grateful for the opportunity,” Paine said.
“I have been working hard the past 12 months, probably more towards white ball cricket. I thought I could still play international cricket with the white ball.
“I was in the last T20 side for Australia and it’s not as if I haven’t been keeping. I keep every day of my life. I’m as ready as I have ever been with the gloves.
“It’s been a hard road to get back here and I am extremely proud of the way I have gone about things over the past five or six years and I feel like I am more ready now than when I played – more mature, I know my game better. I feel in a good place.
“To have this opportunity is amazing, and it’s mine to do what I can with it.”