Paine finds his feet to trample over England
NOW AUSSIE CAPTAIN EYES HISTORIC SERIES WIN
Say what you like about Tim Paine — and over the past few days many have — but yesterday afternoon he could add a useful line to his business card. Unlike any australia captain since Ricky Ponting in 2005, he had led his country to victory in the first Test of an ashes series in england.
as australia reflected on a 251-run win that had seemed fanciful when they collapsed to 122 for eight on the first day, Paine held other cards, too.
There were aces in the form of Steve Smith’s batting and nathan Lyon’s off- spin, plus a handy pair stashed away up his sleeve: seamers Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood were rested here and may be unleashed at Lord’s. as for the jokers in the pack, the Hollies Stand had long fallen silent.
‘Same old aussies, always winning,’ sang their jubilant travelling support, substituting the last word for the ‘cheating’ version favoured by the Barmy army over the course of five up-and-down days in Birmingham. Frankly, the australians deserved the final word.
and Paine deserved to be among those saying it. He had cut a harrowed figure leading into the game, tetchily deflecting questions about his place in the side, dismissing the intimidatory qualities of edgbaston, and even quoting what he thought was a pearl of wisdom from Winston Churchill but turned out to be an aphorism from David Icke.
The Barmies ransacked their songbooks and cleared their throats. But they reckoned without two slices of australian luck, the second compounding the first. Having won an important toss on a pitch that started dry, Paine then watched in quiet jubilation as Jimmy anderson was injured after bowling only four overs. To his credit, australia’s captain was sporting enough to acknowledge the early Christmas present.
‘He is one of the best bowlers, if not the best bowler, in the world, especially here in england,’ said Paine. ‘It made it difficult for their team and put a lot into the workload of Ben Stokes as an all-rounder.
‘I’d be lying if I said psychologically it did not make a difference to our team, and physically to theirs. It is a big win for us, but they lost their premier bowler so we have to be realistic about it.’
There was a statesmanlike quality to Paine’s post- match pronouncements that didn’t seem possible before the Test, or indeed after he pulled Stuart Broad to deep square leg on the first afternoon to depart for three and hasten australia’s collapse. and there were moments during the Test when it seemed fair to say he was no more than a puppet captain, nominally in charge while Smith — still eight months away from being allowed to hold a leadership role again — pulled the strings. But when he urged his team not to get carried away with victory, he did so with a quiet grit.
‘you’ve got to keep a lid on it,’ he said. ‘There are still four Tests to go. We’re here to win the ashes, and do what most australia teams have struggled to do. If we can do it, we’ll be spoken about for quite a long time. That’s what’s driving us. ‘To come to england in these conditions is difficult for us, as it is for england in australia, and there’s a big five weeks to come.’ For the time being, Paine (left) can relax in the knowledge england look as clueless as ever about how to remove Smith, who is giving Don Bradman a run for his money. ‘ We didn’t bat as well as we’d have liked early on day one,’ said Paine. ‘Having said that, one, Steve Smith was still in, and we know how good he is; and two, we knew day five was going to be harder to bat than day one. So if we could drag it deep enough, we’d still be in the game. The last two days we played superb cricket.’
That was all very well, but did he really think edgbaston wasn’t in his top 15 most intimidating Test venues?
‘you try to deflect as much as you can heading into a game of this magnitude, and we were fully aware of how the crowd is here,’ said Paine, with the hint of a smile. ‘It was a little bit of a bluff.’
When Tim Paine gives up cricket, he should think about poker.