PICKING PAINE COULD BE PIVOTAL... IT'S LESS RAMBO, MORE PG-13

Australia look set to hand Tim Paine the gloves for the first Test but is it the right choice?

In American elections, it’s known as the October surprise - a news event that catches the watching public off-guard and, ultimately, has a major bearing on who ends up in office.

On Thursday, news started filtering out of Australian media outlets that the men in charge of picking the Baggy Green squad for the first Ashes Test had taken a leaf out of the political strategists’ notebook.

Tim Paine? Are you feeling alright, chaps?

The what-now-seems-inevitable recall for the 32-year-old - you know a report has credence when even the country in question’s governing body is posting articles about it - marks the culmination of an unlikely comeback.

It’s been more than seven years since Paine pulled on Test-match whites and, this Australian summer, he has found himself playing as a specialist batsman for a Tasmania team who preferred Matthew Wade behind the stumps.

That’s the same Matthew Wade who he’s about to replace in the Aussie line-up.

^{Tim Paine is set for a surprise call-up to the Australia squad}

Is it a moment of madness from the selectors? Or a stroke of genius?

Paine’s career has peaked and troughed quite spectacularly since he announced himself with 215 against Western Australia in 2006 - his maiden and to-this-day only first-class ton.

Spoken about as a future Aussie captain by Steve Waugh in 2010, he played four Tests and showed plenty of promise - scoring 92 and 59 in India - before a broken finger, sustained in an ACA All-Stars T20 outing, took him back to square one.

Multiple operations were required to fix the problem and Wade jumped into the spot as Brad Haddin’s deputy. Paine flirted with selection for Australia’s limited-overs squad but by last spring he was contemplating leaving the game altogether.

A job at Kookaburra was on the table and, had he not been offered an extended deal by Tasmania - he had explicitly stated his reluctance to sign a one-year contract - he may well have retired.

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But Tasmania relented, a new chief executive in the shape of Nick Cummins slapped a second season on the offer and Paine committed.

“To even be playing first-class cricket is probably more than I expected at one stage," he said in an interview with cricket.com.au on Thursday.

"I've been lucky that there's been a lot of changes at Cricket Tasmania and it's kind of refreshed myself and a few of the older guys.

"So it feels like a new job at the moment and it's really exciting.”

The riches-to-rags-to-riches story will continue on Friday when he is confirmed as part of the Aussie’s first-Test squad and, as is crucial among keepers, Paine is confident of his own ability.

"I think I'm one of the best wicketkeepers in Australia," he said in October. “I've always said that and I've always felt that.”

^{Paine receives his first cap from Ricky Ponting in 2010}

But his self assessment comes with one important caveat: “The area that has probably let me down in the last two to three years has been my batting.”

It’s honest.

In first-class cricket, Paine has only finished a season with an average over 32 once since 2013/14 and, between March 2014 and his appearance for a Cricketer Australia XI against England in Adelaide last week, his top red-ball score was 44.

Australia’s head coach, Darren Lehmann, has hit a first-class hundred more recently.

Yet the selectors have put their faith in the 32-year-old from Hobart, presumably picking him to bat at seven.

For those paying close enough attention, it might not come as as much of a surprise - selector Mark Waugh was gushing in his appraisal of Paine’s glovework last month - but for many Aussie fans, so used to a lower-order Rambo, this selection might feel a bit too PG-13.

^{Paine is being brought in for his glovework more than his batting}

Since Brad Haddin retired, and for the first time in three decades, Australia do not have the keeper-batsman at seven who can anchor a rearguard effort, play the foil to a top-order partner or accelerate dramatically towards the back-end of an innings.

None of the candidates for the gloves - Paine, Wade and Peter Nevill - have the grit of Haddin, the grind of Ian Healy or the artistry of Adam Gilchrist.

So, yes, Australia have a problem. England, their chances trodden down and dirtied like a farmhouse doormat in the build-up to this series, should take plenty of confidence.

In the event of Jimmy Anderson and Co picking up the top five cheaply, how resilient will Australia’s tail be? Does Paine have the wherewithal to play the kind of innings Haddin produced to defy England in 2013/14?

Or are the selectors taking the Healy approach that a wicketkeeper’s wicketkeeping matters more than his technique with the bat?

Australia are not selecting their best keeper-batsman, after all - even if the pickings are oh so thin - they are lumping for the man they think has the safest pair of hands, though even that is a matter of fierce public debate.

Safe hands do not always make a safe pick.

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