Ashes 2019: Tim Paine wears baggy green with growing authority

Captains who see bold decisions rewarded are a little more certain in everything they do.

Nathan Lyon, right, and Tim Paine, centre, celebrate the wicket of England's Stuart Broad for 11 runs. Picture: AFP

On Wednesday afternoon at Lord’s, Tim Paine was glimpsed on the Australian balcony in his whites, with a toss in the offing about which, with weather about and the pitch an unknown quantity, neither he nor Joe Root would have been enthusiastic. The fall of a coin, the impulse of a moment — these can make a captain, or break him.

”The hallmark of a great captain is the ability to win the toss at the right time,” observed Richie Benaud — a typically oracular comment, with a gently insistent reminder of luck’s influence on the best-laid plans. In the event, Paine and Root were both spared a tricky decision by showers closing in, and left to brood overnight.

When Australia last took the field after winning the toss, in February 2016, Paine was not even wicketkeeping for Tasmania. He had not invited a Test opposition to bat before, even if he had the counsel of the last Australian to do so at Lord’s, Steve Waugh. Yesterday, to complicate matters, did not present obviously bowl-first conditions; instead Paine intuited a bowl-first scenario. With time lost, and rain looming at the weekend, the best chance of injecting this Second Test with urgency was preying on local batting insecurities: after all, last time England batted here, they were out by lunchtime. Paine took the road less travelled. It has set this Second Test on an interestingly uncertain course.

ASHES 2019: How Day 2 unfolded

In the near term, luck favoured the Australians. Clouds scudded in; Josh Hazlewood’s first Test overs since January were on point; the Jason Roy experiment is beginning to sound more like a 1960s supergroup than a viable top order option for England. “It’s a lot different opening the batting in a Test than a one-day game, that’s for sure,” said Hazlewood when Roy was called up two and a half weeks ago, yea verily.

Cameron Bancroft, Steve Smith and David Warner stand in the slips. Picture: AFP.

After their day cooped up in the dressing room, the Australians exuded a pent-up eagerness to get the game moving. There were few deliveries to leave; the slips crept in to adjust for the pitch’s evident slowness; fielders in the ring were as busy as Jeff Thomson’s shirt. No sooner had Joe Root appeared at the crease than Lyon was observed rolling his arm over. At subsequent breaks for drinks and wickets, Steve Smith could be seen adjourning to the striker’s stumps, practising his back-and-across step and forward prod; between deliveries he unconsciously formed batting shapes. In Smith’s mind, it’s as if he’s always at the crease.

Steve Smith bowls; he’s never out of the game. Picture: AFP.

In the field, Paine kept the changes coming, enabled by the discipline of his bowlers, who were as frugal as Justin Langer has confirmed is the Australian strategy. To Rory Burns, for example, Peter Siddle toiled away on fifth stump, and saw chances at gully and at the wicket go begging. Burns, who wears his technique like a favourite, shaggy pullover, rode these chances out insouciantly. He grows a little at each engagement. So does the Australian determination to remove him.

After lunch, in fact, Cummins bowled a purposeful, powerfully rhythmic spell from the Pavilion End, testing out Burns’ technique against the short ball, which he had investigated at Birmingham. Burns did not funk it, but having been hit resoundingly twice on the same shoulder, fended to short leg.

Tim Paine (left) and Steve Smith weigh up whether to review an unsuccessful LBW appeal. Picture: AFP.

Actually, this is unkind: it is truer to say that Burns fended past short leg, but that Cameron Bancroft’s agility to his left made a full chance of at best a quarter. It was Bancroft’s eleventh catch at short leg, reward for quicksilver anticipation and assiduous practice; what makes him a priceless asset in that cranny of the field is that he has never dropped one.

This was also Cummins in his new guise on this Ashes tour, as a certified leader of the attack rather than a valued auxiliary. His toothpaste advertisement smile has always been a little deceptive — he has the capacity to hurt batsmen, as he did Shikhar Dhawan and Shaun Marsh during the World Cup. Better suited to checking out the middle of the pitch than either Hazlewood or Siddle, he later unsettled Woakes and Archer with as many as three out for the hook. Woakes was left with a sore head, Cummins with sore intercostals by a final spell of 7-1-26-2.

An opposition score of 258 would usually satisfy a captain who had made the choice to bowl, perhaps especially one favoured by the presence of Smith, who last time he batted in a Test match here made 215 and 58 on his own.

All the same, having made the day’s key decision, Paine would have returned anxiously to his balcony to watch it play out in the final hour. With floodlights blazing, Jofra Archer worked up a head of steam and Stuart Broad strained to roll back the years. Bancroft lost his partner David Warner, but Usman Khawaja found a timely fluency.

The full consequences of Paine’s decision have yet, of course, to emerge: the captain who inserts sacrifices longer-term control for shorter-term advantage, and the volatility of English conditions here becomes a factor. But the dividends can be great, and confidence is as confidence does. Captains who see bold decisions rewarded are a little more certain in everything they do. It’s nine years since Paine was handed his baggy green cap on this ground. He is wearing it with ever growing authority.