Australia’s Test captain Tim Paine has endorsed Steve Smith as the candidate for captaincy after he leaves the role somewhere at the end of this year. Piane backed Smith saying his tactics are as good as it gets and that he was thrown into captaincy in the first spell when he was not ready to tackle it. Paine said that the events in South Africa in 2018 will not happen again for sure and he will duly support Smith’s reinstatement as the skipper of the Australian Test team.
“I think so. Obviously, I don’t make that decision but the time I played with Steve as captain he was excellent. Certainly tactically he is as good as you get,” Paine said. He’s probably a bit like me when I was at the start of my captaincy journey in Tasmania — he was thrown into a very big role at a very, very young age and he probably wasn’t quite ready for it,” News Corp Media quoted Paine as saying.
“But by the time I came in he was growing into that role and getting better and better. Then obviously South Africa events happened and he’s not doing it anymore. But yeah I would support him getting that job again.”
Addressing the question of how long he will be there as the captain of the side, Paine said that he will be there at the helm for at least six Tests and that his fate will be decided after the completion of the Ashes series scheduled for the end of this year.
“At least another six Tests,” said the 36-year-old, who is locked in for a home summer featuring one match against Afghanistan and the five-Test Ashes series. If I feel like the time is right and we’ve beaten the Poms 5-0, what a way to go out. But it might be a tight series and we might be chasing 300 on the last day and I’m 100 not out and hit the winning runs — and then I might go again,” Paine added.
Following a home series loss to India, pressure mounted on Cricket Australia and Tim Paine but the Tasmanian has survived in his job and will lead the side for a six-Test long Australian summer starting with a solitary Test against Afghanistan.