After a day of regret, better days ahead for Tim Paine

By admitting his fault Tim Paine reveals an essential integrity amid hysterical claims of recidivism in the Australian Test team

Tim Paine has apologised for his behaviour during the third Test Picture: Getty Images

Reflecting on the events of the Test at the SCG it was obvious that Australia could have done things a little better.

The Australian captain Tim Paine could have led better. The Australian captain could have caught better. The Australian captain could have spoken to opposition players and local officials better.

Much of the Australian team could have played better.

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India too could have played better for four days of the match (but could not have played better on the fifth).

Elements of the Australian crowd could have treated our guests better.

Tim Paine reflected on his behaviour overnight, woke up early, insisted he replace Nathan Lyon at the morning press conference and admitted he could have done things better. Should have caught better, should have led better, should have behaved better.

He was, he said “Bitterly disappointed with the way I went about it”. He didn’t make excuses or smooth things over with a message from marketing.

Some, predictably, have piled onto the Australian team, claiming three years of steady progress has all been undone by one bad day at the office.

This was always going to happen, the first time the Australians stumbled the baying mob would appear again.

The team can’t complain. You may have only ever kissed one goat, but every time after that you allow your gaze to linger on a fetching specimen someone is going to think you’re at it again, but they’re not.

Paine’s apology was heartfelt. He has been more conscious and complicit in attempting to restore the reputation of the national side than anybody. He was at ground zero when it happened and he navigated through the stages of grief that followed.

He endorsed cameras documenting the team and – ironically – embraced the chance to get his voice across via the stump microphone.

When he meditated at the SCG on Monday on what had occurred in the middle and how it looked he apologised.

He says he approached Ravi Ashwin even before the side’s left the ground and admitted to him he’d “ended up looking like the fool”.

“You open your mouth and then you drop a catch,” Paine said.

“We had a bit of a laugh about that, so I think the relations between the two teams have been great. There’s a healthy respect.”

There’s none of this tedious “didn’t cross the line”, “let the match referee be the judge of our behaviour”, “hard but fair” blather that alienated opposition players, fans and eventually the game.

Paine’s words about the tone of the contest aren’t hollow. On the Sunday he had gone to the Indians and stood among them as an act of solidarity while allegations of racial abuse were dealt with.

“Really disappointed (abuse) happens when teams come to Australia and we want it to stop,” Paine said. “I just wanted to make sure the Indian boys know we are also against it and we support them.”

On the last day Marnus Labuschagne helped Ashwin adjust his chest protector.

Other captains have apologised before. Michael Clarke showed his awareness and decency after abusing Dale Steyn in 2014 and attempted to rectify matters on the field. He expressed his regret over the “broken f..king arm” comment to Jimmy Anderson also.

Paine needed no prompting to get things off his chest. He’d had a bad day at the office. He’d allowed things to get to him, done things under pressure he regretted.

“I want to apologise for the way I went about things yesterday,” he said. “I‘m someone who prides themselves on the way I lead this team and yesterday was a poor reflection of that. My leadership wasn’t good enough, I let the pressure of the game get to me, it affected my mood and then from there affected my performance. Yesterday when I came off the ground my reflection was purely on my wicketkeeping.

“Sitting back last night and reflecting on the whole game, I think I said to our players yesterday I‘ve had a really poor game as a leader, not so much as a captain but certainly as a leader. I’m a captain who wants to enjoy the game. I’m a captain who wants to play the game with a smile on their face and yesterday I fell short of my expectations and our team standards. So I’m human, I want to apologise for the mistakes that I made.”

Paine displays the sort of character we’ve missed in Australian cricket.