Tim Paine learned the hard way to be an inclusive captain
Tim Paine’s biggest challenge when handed the keys to a burning car was winning back the public. His second was reintegrating the former captain and vice-captain. He’s done both with aplomb.
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Around the 35th over of their World Cup games this year, Indian captain Virat Kohli would move down to the boundary to field and let his predecessor MS Dhoni set the fields and call the bowling changes.
Kohli figured his best position was roaming the boundary at that point of the game and the side would be better served by Dhoni calling the shots as he had the better view of how the game was progressing.
Around the first time it was noticed Steve Smith was adjusting Australian fields while skipper Tim Paine concentrated on his keeping, the Tasmanian explained he would be insane not to use the experience of Smith or David Warner. This was a twist on the Indian model, but a version of it nonetheless.
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A good captain, confident in his position and not intimidated by the talent and knowledge around them will utilise that talent and knowledge. An insecure captain would insist otherwise.
Kohli is the most powerful captain in world cricket. Paine wasn’t joking when he said that it was up to the Indian whether next year’s series starts in Brisbane or not because you can be sure that if Kohli doesn’t want something to happen it won’t.
And it is a mark of how secure he is that he allows MS Dhoni, once the most powerful person in cricket, to steer the car when appropriate.
It is a mark of how secure Paine is that he too delegates at times to a predecessor with more experience.
Ian Chappell caused headlines when he said this week that Smith was white anting Paine by fine tuning field placements.
Chappell was a great leader, born to the role and firm in his convictions. A senior player moving the field in his time would have been white anting the skipper.
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But Paine’s circumstances and approach are different. He is pragmatic where Chappelli is dogmatic. He has said time and again he would be a fool not to use the experience of Smith and Warner.
Allan Border was happy to let coach Bob Simpson run the show, the day Mark Taylor took over the dynamic shifted and Simpson took a back seat again.
“Look I only try to help Tim as much as I can, you know. He’s doing a terrific job. But I give him suggestions and things like that, I only want the team to do well, I’m certainly not undermining him,” Smith said.
The bottom line here is, if Paine doesn’t have a problem then there is no problem.
We’ve been down this path before. English commentators accused Smith of being the de facto captain during the early Ashes matches. Smith responded that he felt it appropriate he give advice and confident that if it wasn’t welcome Paine would tell him to “shut up”.
Paine dismissed the issue as “fake news”, but Smith is still hypersensitive to criticism and went out of his way to respond to the claims.
One day the skill with which Paine has handled the extraordinary circumstances of his captaincy will be appreciated.
The Tasmanian was a veteran of eight consecutive Tests when a call came over the two way radios at training asking him to return to the Cape Town dressing rooms.
He’d played four Test as a boy, but had spent seven years outside the side.
Paine was told that morning that he would be taking over the captaincy from Smith.
He’d had limited experience as a skipper of his state and one of the lessons he says he learned was making the mistake of being a “my way or the high way” leader when he first got the reins of the team.
Paine alienated others in the Tasmanian team and learned the hard way that you needed to be inclusive.
The house was on fire the day he got the Australian job. The team’s reputation was at its lowest ebb.
On the back of a successful 12 months it is easy to forget how difficult the first period of Paine’s captaincy was.
Losing games and winning back the public was hard enough. Reintegrating the former captain and vice-captain was another challenge.
Doing it any other way would be as crazy as a Prime Minister banishing their predecessor to the back bench.