Tim Paine channels Don Bradman and Ian Healy to help carry burden of being both keeper and captain
THE spirit of Don Bradman and Ian Healy is being kept alive in quiet corners of multi-story car parks in the UAE thanks to Australia captain Tim Paine.
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THE spirit of Don Bradman and Ian Healy is being kept alive in quiet corners of multi-story car parks in the United Arab Emirates.
In the first Test in Dubai, Tim Paine produced one of the most impressive performances by an Australian wicketkeeper in decades and now the new captain has given a fascinating insight into the secret behind his flawless glovework.
Test greats like Allan Border still worry about the enormous burden of being both captain and custodian, yet in oppressive conditions against Pakistan, Paine took every half chance and underlined his leadership with the subtle but powerful gesture of imploring teammates to keep a lid on emotions after their great escape.
“A draw is a draw,” says Paine.
“And we’re here to win.”
Paine admits “he tried too hard” on his failed first assignment as national captain/keeper in England earlier this year where Australia were whitewashed in one-dayers and that struggle has likely cost him his ODI career.
So now Paine has simply gone back to what he’s always done on the back-buildings and carparks of Hobart: throwing a golf ball up against a wall and catching for hours on end.
Bradman famously did a similar trick off a water tank and hit with a stump, and perhaps more relevantly, Healy often retreated alone with inners on like Paine does now to throw a golf ball and catch.
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Paine says the confidence he takes from the solitude and rhythm of that constant ping on concrete, will sustain him through one of the toughest assignments ever taken on in Test match cricket.
“I watched Ian Healy years ago doing it so I do that. I can do it standing up, I can do it standing back,” he said.
“The beauty of it is I can catch 10 times as many balls as if I had someone hitting me balls.
“A lot of the time at Bellerive I just go up the back of the grandstand by myself for an hour or two just banging the golf ball up against the wall.
“It’s pretty boring but in some weird way I really enjoy it. I find it relaxes me and allows me to go into a Test knowing I’m in a good place.
“(Today) I’ll just find a carpark or something like that.”
Paine’s demeanour and skill level in Dubai in all facets of the game was remarkable.
But he had to learn the hard way.
“One thing I learned (from England this year) was I probably trained too hard and tried too hard,” he said.
“I was getting into games quite mentally worn out. I was using quite a lot of energy even when I wasn’t at the cricket. So it’s just being able to relax a little bit more.”
Paine confirmed the reasoning behind telling excited Australian teammates to cool it after he secured the great save in Dubai was a documentary he watched where former England captain Michael Vaughan said he knew he had Australia beat in the 2005 Ashes when they celebrated a draw.
“I just saw a little bit of it (the celebrations) spilling out the door,” he said.
“… Vaughan said after one of those Tests that he felt as an opposition captain that they had them when he saw them celebrating a draw.
“I’ve seen that myself before. We were clearly pretty excited by what we’d been able to achieve because it doesn’t happen too much, but you’ve got to keep a bit of perspective.”
Second and deciding Test Pakistan v Australia. 5pm on Fox Cricket from Abu Dhabi
Australia likely: Usman Khawaja, Aaron Finch, Shaun Marsh, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Marnus Labuschagne, Tim Paine, Mitchell Starc, Peter Siddle, Nathan Lyon, Jon Holland
Pakistan 12-man squad: Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Hafeez, Azhar Ali, Haris Sohail, Asad Shafiq, Babar Azam, Shadab Khan, Sarfraz Ahmed (capt), Mohammad Abbas, Bilal Asif, Mir Hamza, Yasir Shah
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