No Paine, no gain: Australia’s captain is thriving in the bubble

Tim Paine might have a reputation for being tight with his money, but he has a personality which has created a tight team.

Australian captain Tim Paine during a net session at Adelaide Oval. Picture: Getty Images

There’s a social media video doing the rounds of Australia’s captain punching the table in frustration as his credit card is drawn out of a hat.

In and out of shot a large group of Australian players laugh uproariously at the skipper’s frustration.

Paine has lost “credit card roulette” and has been lumbered with the whole bill for dinner, but his anger is performative.

Former media manager Kate Hutchison has sledged the captain on social media over the years, referring to him as “the tightest bloke in Australian cricket”. It’s a reputation Paine rolls with, figuring if you can’t fight it you may as well make the most of it.

At the traditional team dinner — which comes out of the captain’s allowance — players such as David Warner run with the joke by finding the most expensive wine on the menu to ensure the bill is as large as possible.

The point here is not the amount of money being splashed around, but the camaraderie and spirit in the Australian Test team and Paine’s central role to it.

On the eve of the first Ashes Test in Birmingham the captain’s room was the traditional setting for the card games that became a constant part of a tour where the bus is basically a dressing room on wheels.

Paine reads a room better than most. He finds a place in it rather than demanding one that would be a captain’s right as some may have in the past.

His personality is critical in the coach-captain nexus as well. He is a practical, unemotional counter point to Justin Langer’s passionate intensity, his ability to delegate and engage only where necessary is a lesson to others and a complement rather than counterpoint to Langer’s micro management.

Organisations like the Australian Test team over complicate themselves, have too many meetings and so many people reporting in from their fiefdom that the noise and information can become overwhelming. Paine has an ability to stick to core business. He will cut off discussion of subjects he considers a distraction or irrelevance in the manner of Mark Waugh who would shrug his shoulders when a bowlers’ strategy meeting was called and ask what the point was when the only thing that needed be said was “aim at the top of off”.

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Two incidents involving Paine during the 2018-19 tour get a lot of air time. The first is the clash with Virat Kohli in Perth, the second the exchange(s) with Rishabh Pant. The Indian wicketkeeper had been sledging the Tasmanian through the Tests calling him the “temporary captain”. Then the roles were reversed and Paine, who was wearing the gloves, suggests that Pant might want to join the Hobart Hurricanes, come over for dinner, maybe even babysit the kids.

He was asked by a member of the Indian media if humour was his go to on the field.

“Not really,” Paine replied. “I just try and do what I think is best at the time. I think the stuff that keeps getting replayed with Rishabh was just some friendly chat.

“My read on him at the time was that he was a player we could distract into playing a bit of a loose shot. He was a sort of a fun, happy, relaxed guy and so yeah that was the angle I took with him but it won’t be with everyone. I try and read the situation I’m in at the time and try and adapt to that.”

His line in the sand moment with Kohli had a different tone, but Paine’s resolved calm was impressive as the Indian skipper almost chested the batsman.

Things could have escalated quickly. Paine read the room in a micro and macro sense.

“We certainly don’t go into it planning to have run-ins or be overly aggressive,” he said on the eve of the match. “We just sort of go out trying to execute our skills with bat and ball. As we all know, at times on cricket fields, things can be a little bit willing. If that is the case, then there’s no doubt that this team will not be taking a backward step.”

The alternative captain gibe brings us to the eternal question about Paine’s long-term intentions and unique situation given these last three years are an unexpected encore for the 36-year-old.

“I‘ve said since the first time I came back into the Test team, when I wasn’t the captain, that I wouldn’t look past another series,” Paine said when asked his plans. “I did that (looked past the present) when I was young and you can have it taken away really quickly.

“So for me at the moment the focus is on Adelaide, after that it‘ll be Melbourne and so on for the rest of this series. Then we’ll wait and see at the end of it, I’m often talking to JL and Trevor Hohns about when or how it might look in the future. But as I said, my sights are firmly set on this series and that is it.”

Paine brushes concerns over bubble life. Here’s a man who loves playing cricket, talking cricket, training for cricket and watching cricket.

For him the bubble’s a warm bath and one that might extend his career.

“I’m getting a great night’s sleep, my kids are both at home – which is good in one way but I certainly miss them,” he said.

“I’m sleeping better here and feel fresher here than I did at home, so hub life might actually make me longer if anything.”

Paine is comfortable with his situation.

“I’ve got a role to play in this group like everyone else does, as long as I keep doing that, then we’re all happy,” he said.