'Good bloke' Paine shows he is no pushover

SIMON HUGHES: His choice as Australian captain is not just a sop to all those politically correct Australians demanding their cricket team be eleven Mr Nice Guys

There is something seriously likeable about Tim Paine, and its not just because he’s an Aussie who doesn’t start every sentence with ‘Look’ or that he once agreed at a charity dinner I was hosting to eat a plate of witchetty grubs.

He is basically a good bloke who has been lumbered with the job of reconstructing Australia’s battered reputation. He is straight-forward, modest, decent and yet no pushover. His choice as Australian captain is not just a sop to all those politically correct Australians demanding their cricket team be eleven Mr Nice Guys.

Proving he can handle his tough assignment, he not only led Australia to a facing victory but made a couple of spiky retorts to Virat Kohli’s unseemly posturing in the Perth Test.

^{"He is straight-forward, modest, decent and yet no pushover"}

‘You’ve got to bat on it last big head,’ he said on the field after Kohli had warned Paine that if he failed with the bat they’d go 2-0 down in the series. Later he declared to one Indian batsman that ‘just because he’s captain doesn’t mean you have to like him.’  

Paine is the new, fresh face of Australian cricket, but one writ large with determination and commitment. His batting bears this out. He is not flamboyant, a dasher in the mould of many modern wicketkeepers. He does not have an impressive record. Amazingly he has only one first-class hundred. But he sells his wicket dearly.

He does everything neatly, solidly, with a clean cut simplicity. He is devoted to the team, a man without ego. He does not have a tattoo or an obsession with Instagram. He is, in many ways, the ultimate contrast to Kohli. 

Paine was practically hauled out of retirement to take on the biggest sporting job in his country. He doesn’t have a vast amount of captaincy experience but he’s practical and sensible, He is an honest man doing an honest job. He is a realist. He knows it will take time to rebuild the public’s faith in the team.

^{Paine and Kohli clashed at Perth}

The Perth victory is a small step towards that. It was achieved with a good basic approach to batting - that dirty-old phrase ‘occupation of the crease’ - and bowling that married hostility with canniness.

The Australians never overdid the intimidation on a pitch where they could have done, but the quicks made their presence felt, and Nathan Lyon’s influence confirmed that Australia’s selectors are smarter than their Indian counterparts. 

Paine gave a good, candid press conference after the victory, not infused with OTT comment, rhetoric or hyperbole. It was a conference infused with relief and a little pride but also the realisation that it is just the start.

The Aussie batting still looks ropey. But Paine has conducted himself with greater dignity and control than his opposite number over these last two games and now can look forward to Christmas with his teammates not eating humble pie.