Tasmania’s most successful cricket coach says Tim Paine is the perfect person to lead Australia out of its mire.
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The 33-year-old wicketkeeper’s meteoric rise to become Australia’s 46th Test captain – and Tasmania’s second after Ricky Ponting – just months after contemplating retirement has been backed by Tim Coyle.
Coyle, who helped talk the father-of-one into remaining in the game, said Paine’s turbulent career held him in good stead to guide a new-look Australian side through the fourth Test against South Africa in Johannesburg.
Paine made his Test debut in 2010, and following a long battle with injury and exclusion from Dan Marsh’s struggling Tigers outfit, was surprisingly recalled for this season’s Ashes series.
“He’s always been a person of tremendous leadership qualities,” Coyle said.
“He always leads by example, he’s a good voice in the changeroom, he’s got a good cricket brain and he’s had all the ups and downs that anyone could throw at him.
“It’s been a hell of a journey, and through those sorts of journeys, people learn a lot about how to go about your business and I think with all that, Tim’s in a good place to lead Australia into this Test match.”
Coyle said he noticed Paine’s natural playing and leadership ability early on at the state’s cricket academy, and the wicketkeeper went on to line-up in two of Coyle’s three Sheffield Shield triumphs as Tigers coach in 2006-07 and 2012-13.
At 16 years old Paine was Australia's youngest-ever contracted player, in 2005 he made his first-class debut and in 2010, a right finger injury sustained in a Twenty20 friendly threatened to end his career.
Now he is the first wicketkeeper to be awarded the top national job since Adam Gilchrist, and Coyle is pleased Paine made the choice to continue his career – knocking back a job offer from Kookaburra.
“You’ve got to have an eye on what’s happening after cricket and for Tim he was presented with an opportunity and discussions I had with him, and other people would have had with him, is that you have to consider both pretty carefully,” he said.
“At that stage there wasn’t a lot of cricket opportunity for him in Tasmania, so from my conversations he was very, very close from taking on that role.
“Thankfully some changes occurred in Tasmanian cricket and they were very keen to have him around with the new chief executive [Nick Cummins] expressing the need to have experienced players in the group as they rebuild their program.
“The lifeline was there and he grabbed it by performing well and then made his way into the Australian team… and he has proven to everyone that it was a very good decision.”
Coyle said Paine faces a difficult task in captaining a side without captain-in-exile Steve Smith, his deputy David Warner and opener Cameron Bancroft, who have all been sent home following the ball-tampering fiasco in Cape Town.
The trio have been replaced in the squad by Matthew Renshaw, Joe Burns and Glenn Maxwell, while Victorian captain Peter Handscomb is expected to play – providing Paine with support along with the remaining members of the team’s leadership group.
“It’s a real challenge with the key players that are out but it’s a great opportunity for those players to come into the team and hopefully we can have a good news story next week about a good performance in the Australian cricket team led by Tim Paine,” Coyle said.
“It’s been a very disappointing few days for all cricket followers but it now looks like it’s being dealt with in the appropriate way and hopefully the situation can be sorted and we can move on.
“There is a big recovery process now needed for everyone involved.
“The situation is not good, it’s not a good time for Australian cricket but we’ve seen things in the past where you look at it and think ‘gee, how are we going to recover from that’ but we do.
“We’ve just got to bounce back now and get on with the business.”
The final Test of the scandalous series starts on Good Friday, with Australia hoping to keep its perfect post-Apartheid record in South Africa in tact.
Australia trail in the series 2-1 after winning the opening match.