Tim Paine’s year in English club cricket that kept him in the game and set a course for the Australian captaincy
Tim Paine has been cast as an accidental Australian Test captain; the only choice in a time of crisis. In truth his journey has been more deliberate than that. And began one summer in a sleepy town in Oxfordshire.
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When Tim Paine went to England in the winter of 2015 to play for Banbury Cricket Club, being a nice bloke didn’t get you into the Australian team. Let alone a chance of being picked as captain.
Back then, Australian selectors wanted runs, dismissals and a combative approach from their wicketkeepers, and were still following the time-honoured tradition of selecting the team’s best batsman as captain.
Paine, with his modest batting average, unassuming demeanour and dodgy index finger, hadn’t played a Test for five years.
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This would all change when Australia’s up-and-at-em’ approach blew up in their face during the ill-fated 2018 South Africa tour.
However, that Paine was still around cricket at all, by then, to take over the captaincy, was thanks, in part, to his English summer three years earlier.
Banbury is a town in Oxfordshire, just north of Oxford, south of Birmingham and not far from the famous Cotswold Hills. While he was there, Paine realised he had more to offer a cricket team than just runs, catches and stumpings.
“I’d had a couple of pretty ordinary seasons in Tasmania, coming back from another finger injury, but by the time I went home (to prepare for the 2015-16 Australian season) I was enjoying my cricket again,” Paine says.
As well as playing league games every Saturday, Paine coached Banbury’s juniors, the women’s team and a group of wicketkeepers.
“It was the first time that I’d done anything like that,” he says. “Talking to club players and younger players, I had to think more about what I was saying to get my message across in a way that they could understand.”
Banbury players remember a decent coach and a top player (more than 800 league runs including four centuries), but what lingers in their minds are Paine’s personal qualities.
“He was easy to talk to because he didn’t have his guard up,” says Chloe Hill, part of Paine’s coaching group and now Worcestershire women’s wicketkeeper.
Luke Ryan, Banbury captain that year, found Paine to be humble, objective, and unflappable if things didn’t go to plan.
“He was someone I could go to for advice, but he wouldn’t push his views unless asked,” Ryan says.
Batsman Lloyd Sabin says the future Australian skipper would go out of his way to help him and had time for everyone.
Martin Phillips, Banbury’s chairman and Paine’s landlord during his stay in England, remembers him spending hours talking cricket with a 14-year-old player who was desperate to make it as a professional.
“What other 30-year-old would do that?” Phillips says. “He’s a natural people person and got on with everyone — even the neighbours and the local pub landlord.”
Paine’s Cricket Australia bosses also see the value of these attributes. His job in the Australian side, he’s been told, is to be the best captain he can be and keep wicket. Any runs he scores are a bonus.
Think about his public support for Nathan Lyon after Lyon’s fluffed run-out chance cost Australia the Headingley Test. Or how he reassured Travis Head, who had been dropped for The Oval Test along with James Pattinson and Mitchell Starc, who were rested, that they were still an important part of the team’s plans.
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During the Old Trafford Test, just as Australia was about to declare, Paine caught sight of Martin Phillips, who was in the stand watching the game. Paine still keeps in contact with his old Banbury teammates and is part of their WhatsApp group.
Later that day, Paine sent Phillips a text apologising for not speaking to him.
“He’s Australian captain, in the middle of a Test match, so quite busy, and he still takes time out to do that,” Phillips says.
Really nice bloke. And he wins cricket matches.
Originally published as Tim Paine’s year in English club cricket that kept him in the game and set a course for the Australian captaincy