Tim Paine and Matt Wade’s journey from neighbours to Test teammates
Tim Paine and Matt Wade were once kids from the suburbs pinching numbers from the scoreboard at the local ground in Hobart. On Thursday, they’ll take that bond out onto the Gabba.
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It sounds almost too bizarre to be true.
Two kids who grew up literally a couple of streets away from each other in the same tiny Hobart suburb have emerged from their fiery backyard contests to play Test cricket together.
But the most unbelievable part of it is they were both wicketkeepers and there was only ever going to be room for one of them in the Australian team. Or so we thought.
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Tim Paine, from Bambra Street, Lauderdale, and Matthew Wade, from Mannata Street, will walk out to bat one after the other at the Gabba on Thursday.
As part of a band of about eight kids of varying ages from the small suburb on the outskirts of Hobart, Paine and Wade were known to break window panels with leg-side clips, and pinch numbers from the scoreboard at the local ground to use for their own matches.
They’d find spare blocks of land to play games of footy where there were no rules. They’d bash each other up and the highest score at the end won.
As adults – they have for the best part of a decade interchanged – in and around Brad Haddin and Peter Nevill – as the Australian wicketkeeper.
Wade refused to go away and has returned as a specialist batsman.
Paine’s older brother Nick, knows every blade of grass in the backyards where that merciless competitiveness and iron-willed toughness was bred.
“I think there’s always been that competitive edge between them but when there’s only one spot in the team,” said Nick Paine.
“The age bracket between the eight of us wasn't massive by any stretch but as the two youngest fellas they had to learn to fend for themselves a little bit. Now that competitiveness they both have, they’re as competitive beasts as you’d come across I reckon and that started from back then.
“They were pretty good as young fellas at copping it on the chin and taking everything that came their way. It stood them in good stead for the ruthlessness which comes with being an international cricketer.
“If you’re going to be the best you have to be a bit selfish and in a sense look after yourself and prepare yourself for the highs and lows, which I think they’ve both handled really well.
“And ultimately, they’ve ended up in the same side.”
When they played together for the first time in the first Test of the Ashes, it was special.
“He was out there when I got a hundred and to be able to represent our countries is something we dreamt about when we were playing back home in the backyard,” said Wade.
The brothers Paine and Wade reflected with a beer in the Edgbaston dressing rooms, about just how amazing it is.
“We sit back and think, how did that happen?” said Tim Paine.
“From where we come from, literally a few hundred metres apart in the same street cricket competition is pretty extraordinary and an amazing achievement really.
“We’re no different to millions of kids growing up playing backyard cricket with their mates. It’s a great lesson that if you want something enough, it can happen.”
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The fact that two of the 11 places in the Australian Test team to start the summer hail from a suburb with a population of about 2000 isn’t even the most amazing fact as far as the elder Paine brother is concerned.
He points to Wade’s handling of being diagnosed with testicular cancer aged 16, and Paine’s bouncing back from a career-threatening finger injury as the true mark of the two fighters.
“Not only to say they’re coming from the same suburb, Tim has been to hell and back with his finger and Wadey has his own health issues as well, something which would have been very scary to be going through for him and his family,” said Nick.
“Personally, that makes the story even better.”
Originally published as Tim Paine and Matt Wade’s journey from neighbours to Test teammates
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