Tim Paine and Steve Smith must make amends for misdeeds

Cricket Australia have set a standard that you can call a rival what you like, providing you fix it up with an apology afterwards.

Tim Paine is captain of Australia’s cricket team. Steve Smith is his predecessor and, some argue, his ideal successor. Both take the field in the Fourth Test at the Gabba on Friday with some ground to make up.

“I think it’s boiling away,” Paine said on the eve of the Sydney Test. “There’s some stuff starting to happen, there’s a bit of chat starting to happen.” He spoke of “tension” in India’s camp about the venue for the fourth Test, Brisbane being a venue “they don’t want to go to.”

He concluded: “I think it’s starting to grind a few people. We’ll see how it goes.”

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Projection? Because in Sydney it was Paine who looked like a captain being boiled and ground, and we did see how that went. His keeping was flawed; his captaincy was sub-par, even if it’s arguable that Australia’s declaration proved well timed and well calibrated.

Most of all, he was, for him, unusually truculent, with opponents, and with umpire Paul Wilson, incurring a fine for an audible obscenity.

The day after the Test, fulsomely and manfully, Paine expressed contrition: “I want to apologise for the way I went about things yesterday. I’m someone who prides themselves on the way I lead this team and yesterday was a poor reflection of the team. I let the pressure of the game get to me. It affected my mood and my performance.”

This speaks well of him: it is hard to recall an Australian captain reflecting so candidly.

For this, Paine has received a good deal of credit. The Australian Cricketers’ Association even issued a press release of approbation.

Yet I’m not sure what the ACA has to do with this. Paine has ample support. And his apology fell short in an important respect: it made no direct mention of Ravi Ashwin, whom Paine impugned gratuitously and nastily in a lengthy monologue that was eagerly transcribed and disseminated.

Ashwin had done nothing to deserve such a tirade except resist the Australians stoutly and successfully. We are told that sledging is about making opponents think too hard about what they are doing. Yet Paine’s remarks referred not to a shot or the pitch or the circumstances of the game, but to Ashwin’s reputation, among teammates and the Indian Premier League.

The comments were neither droll nor funny; they were spiteful; they also placed the match officials in an awkward position. Looking at the umpire, Ashwin said pointedly: “Your guy.”

The Indians are well aware they are being umpired by Australians; frankly, we have seen how that can end.

Paine admitted that he “looked a fool” when he dropped a catch the following over; actually he already did. He is well aware of the stump mics: indeed, it was he who pioneered their use as a kind of propaganda tool in Perth two years ago. Yet on he carried, apparently wishing to be heard by the widest possible audience.

Thousands of children have now heard Australia’s captain refer to a opponent as a “dickhead”, to query his status in the team, to brag about his own record. Yet Paine expressed regret only about “the way I spoke to umpires”; the inference must be that he cares less about how he addresses opponents. A public disparagement, for this is what the stump mics made it, called for a public apology.

I regret having to say this. Paine has been a fine captain. He seems to be a good man. But in the aftermath of the Sydney Test, he missed a chance to set a standard for Australian cricketers generally. And because no sanction was imposed, the Cricket Australia-approved message is that you can call a rival what you like, providing you fix it up with an apology afterwards. Then you’ll be sweet. Then you’ll be praised for being a “great leader.”

Smith, meanwhile, has unwittingly found himself at the centre of a cricket tempest over his mucking about in Rishabh Pant’s block, which has been rather wildly proposed as an instance of gamesmanship.

Smith is upset at the allegation, and rightly: it was impossible to see how Pant might be misled, or even what Australian advantage might accrue.

The explanation furnished was entirely plausible: the Australian was merely involved in his obsessive shadow batting, which we know occurs even in hotel rooms, and in full whites.

Steve Smith bats during a nets session at the Gabba on Thursday Picture: Getty Images

I confess some fellow feeling here, being myself a compulsive shadow batsman, and knowing that marking a phantom guard is part of the kinaesthetic pleasure. I have two bats in my kitchen, where I have played most of my best innings. All of them, actually.

Still, there was a lesson here for Smith. It is my kitchen; it was not Smith’s pitch.

A fielder, for that’s what Smith was at the time, having finished his batting for the match, has no business being anywhere near a fifth-day surface. Had Smith been batting, and a fielder walked into his crease to play shadow strokes, he would have been first to object.

If it was compulsive behaviour, it is a compulsion Smith needs to resist. It suggests an obliviousness to the world round him; it suggests, in fact, a continuation of the self-absorption that proved problematic at Cape Town in 2018.

Perhaps because we are so invested in the idea of Smith the batting savant there has been too much pandering to his quirks and mannerisms. Protection of Smith’s much vaunted ‘bubble’ has caused an apprehension about pricking it.

That has some entailments. Much has been made, for example, of the simpatico between Smith and Marnus Labuschagne – in the main benign, even nourishing. But Labuschagne should also be being encouraged to become his own man, not a second Smith.

There is a budding Smithesque egocentricity to Labuschagne’s cricket, most noticeable in how long he can take to get off the field when dismissed.

Disappointment is one thing. On occasion, Labuschagne is in danger of being timed in. The field belongs to everyone, not just to those who feel entitled to rule it.

This has been a terrific Test series: by their skills and presences, Paine, Smith and Labuschagne have played huge roles in making it so memorable. It would enhance the experience for everyone were they to sign off in the Gabba Test on a note of grace.