Smiling Aussies will still be fierce opponents, Paine says

Hosts’ captain wants his pacers not to get ‘too emotional’

Australia will be as fired up as ever against India despite their new vow to play with a smile, captain Tim Paine said yesterday, while warning his pace attack not to get “too emotional”.

The teams meet in the first of four Tests at Adelaide from Thursday in the wake of a scathing review into the balltampering scandal in South Africa, which criticised Australian cricketers for “playing the mongrel” against rivals.

In response, the team produced a so-called Players’ Pact, urging Australians to “compete with us, smile with us, fight with us, dream with us”.

Paine has also pledged to shake opponents’ hands before each match as a mark of respect in a bid to change the culture within the side. The move to tone down their infamous abrasive attitude was criticised by former skipper Michael Clarke last week, but Paine insisted the aggression would still be on show.

“It’s been received well, I haven’t heard otherwise,” he told cricket.com.au of the handshake idea. “I just think it’s a bit of a no-brainer, just a show of sportsmanship.

“It doesn’t mean we’ll be the nicest team in the world to play against by any stretch of the imagination. We’ll still be really competitive and fired up out on the ground.”

The Australians will be coming face-to-face with famously combative Indian skipper Virat Kohli, who thrives on the verbal banter and has never been shy of riling the opposition.

Paine concedes his pace attack of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins can get hot under the collar in the heat of competition, and urged them to not rise to any bait. “At times when we get too emotional, we can lose our way a little bit. It’s a really fine line.”