Skipper weathers knocks to deliver
TIM Paine produced his best batting effort as captain and Travis Head smashed a second Test century as Australia turned the screws on a “submissive” New Zealand outfit in a Boxing Day debacle for the tourists.
Negative bowling from the Black Caps was met with positive batting from Paine, who produced his third half-century as skipper amid a 98-run second session as the Kiwis lost their way at the MCG.
The short-ball assault went awry as bouncers so big they were called wides filtered in to the Black Caps bowling and any sense of pressure on the home team dissolved.
When opening batsman Tom Blundell took the first over after lunch, it was akin to the Kiwis waving the white flag, but proved like a red rag to a bull for Paine.
The Aussie captain had already smashed 12 runs off the final over before the break from spinner Mitchell Santner, who was more passenger than participant in the game.
After the Aussies scored just 27 runs in the first hour of the day, Paine decided to put his foot down, and in doing so, took a baseball bat to anyone still wanting to suggest captaincy skills alone couldn’t keep him in the side.
Paine, whose innings was his best since he made 58 in Manchester during the Ashes, showed intent from ball one.
Coming in after Steve Smith fell short of a fifth straight Boxing Day century, Paine played the Plan A short stuff from the Kiwis in equal parts as warrior and craftsman.
He let a few hit him, swayed out of the way of others, while hooking and pulling the ones that really took his fancy.
Coach Justin Langer has often called Paine the “toughest pretty boy I’ve seen” and the skipper lived out that description.
Paine pulled Southee to the boundary for four to bring up his 50, off just 72 balls, and by the time he was done for 79 after tea, the captain was the only one of his batsman with a strike rate above 50.
The 150-run stand he shared with Head, who played the anchor role for Australia’s total of 467, took the game away from the Kiwis, who couldn’t take more than five wickets through the opening five sessions of the game.
Australia had two New Zealand wickets in just 18 overs before stumps, including Kiwi captain Kane Williamson, who skied a strange pull shot off comeback kid James Pattinson and then trudged his way off the MCG wondering just what the heck he’d done.
It was an impatient shot, the sort of which the Australian top order batsmen, and Head particularly didn’t play in reaching his second Test hundred two weeks after feeling “flat” when he missed out in the first Test in Perth.
“It’s pretty cool isn’t it,” Head said of his triple-figure feat. “I feel like I’ve been playing well.”