Hi-viz Tim Paine relishes keeping up with Nathan Lyon

They say the best keepers are the invisible men, but Tim Paine completely disagrees.

Tim Paine stands up to the stumps for Nathan Lyon’s bowling in the third Test

They say the best keepers are the invisible men, but Tim Paine completely disagrees.

He’s confident he will be noticed when he stands up to the stumps to keep to the bowling of Australian spinner Nathan Lyon in the fourth Test at the SCG.

Lyon is tipped to create havoc out of the rough when the Sydney pitch wears this week, and the Australian captain will relish the high-stakes challenge.

“I don’t subscribe to the old theory that the best keeper is the one you never notice,” Paine said yesterday.

“Keepers that are OK, you don’t notice. Keepers that are bad you notice and I think keepers who are very, very good, you notice.”

News Corp columnist Robert Craddock has been covering Test cricket since 1986 and is adamant Paine is the equal of any wicketkeeper of the past 30 years when it comes to skill and class up to the stumps.

The skipper seems to have so much time with his glovework and moves like he has an extra second on his rivals, even when he is manoeuvring to deal with the extra bounce and spin that makes Lyon so dangerous.

Paine revealed he and Lyon had put hours of extra work into their combination ahead of Australia’s acid Test against India on the turning SCG pitch, as he gave an insight into what it’s like to keep to arguably the game’s No 1 spinner.

“In the Ashes last year we went early together a lot and he would do his bowling warm-up and I’d catch them just to get used to the extra spin and extra bounce he gets,” said Paine.

“Once you adjust to the basics it’s a bit of a mindset thing when you keep to someone like Nathan Lyon.

“If you’re saying, ‘Geez, it’s going to be hard because he spins it and bounces it’, then it’s going to be a difficult thing.

“But I spin it and say, ‘Well, I’m going to be in the game every ball and I love that’.

“I love the challenge of keeping to him. I love the fact that if you keep well to Nathan Lyon, people notice it.”

Paine’s journey to Test cricket is an extraordinary one.

At the age of 34, he has a second-life on the international scene he never thought he’d get, and he is captaining his country in the most extraordinary of circumstances.

But Paine isn’t just satisfied with his journey back. The Australian skipper is motivated to be the best at his craft.

“A lot of keepers I think are defeated by the time they start when it’s spinning square, but I try to spin it on its head,” he said.

“The more difficult a bowler is or the conditions are to keep in, the more I enjoy them.”

Although both teams are expecting a spin-friendly pitch, if this season is anything to go by, it will be more of a batsman’s paradise. Both Sheffield Shield games in Sydney this season were drawn, with 10 wickets falling in just one of the seven innings.

A total of 3116 runs at 46.5 per wicket have been scored at the SCG across those Sheffield Shield matches plus India’s drawn tour game that preceded the four-Test series.