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It felt a bit naff at the time, but in the end, the marketing ad for the Australia-India series on the brand-new Fox Cricket channel turned out to be scythingly accurate.
The Indian cricket fan, sitting there on the couch, was quite proudly rattling off his claims: “We have the best team in the world… We have the best batsmen in the world,” he said, smugly, even if it was hard to argue.
The big-eyed Australian fan beside him, clearly of subcontinental heritage himself, simply took it all in, turned, and dead-panned straight back to the Indian fan.
“But we have Tim Paine.”
Cue high-fives with the Australian captain himself, now in shot and sitting next to the little Australian, gold-clad boy.
And with the benefit of hindsight, the concept of an Indian man boastfully – if playfully – arguing with an Australian boy turned out to be prescient as well, given the much-highlighted events of the Perth Test. There, it was on between Indian captain and global cricketing superstar Virat Kohli and his Australian counterpart, who inherited the role by default.
If the miraculous draw against Pakistan in Dubai – where Paine could be seen signalling to his celebrating teammates on the balcony of the players’ area to keep a lid on things – was the first sign that the Australian team was being led a very different way, then the win in Perth was the bold-fonted, double-underlined confirmation.
Here was an Australian side, who still hadn’t necessarily batted as well as it will need to over the remaining two Tests, but who had emphatically won a Test match over the number one team in the world on the back of some superb bowling, brilliant fielding, and inspirational leadership.
Skipper Tim Paine of Australia. (Photo by Ashley Vlotman/Gallo Images/Gallo Images)
Paine’s own contributions to the win were fairly typically Paine-ish: a couple of vital, fighting thirties with the bat, six catches, and just ten byes in more than 160 overs with the gloves across both Indian innings.
But it was the public way he took a stand against Kohli over the final three days of the Perth Test that has endeared him to an Australian public, climbing back on board now in droves.
In truth, Kohli’s carry-on over the first two days had been a follow-up to much the same sort of carry-on in Adelaide. Colleague Ronan O’Connell summed it up beautifully this week in saying, “while Kohli typically is a sketch of calm when batting, in the field he is far less in control of his emotions.”
And it was being noticed more and more, and even eliciting a few comments here and there. Mitchell Johnson wasn’t impressed. Michael Hussey suggested – rightly, if somewhat inflammatorily at the time – that had an Australian player carried on the field, handing out send-offs left, right, and centre, the headlines would be horrendous.
Sunny Gavaskar didn’t have time to pick up on Kohli’s behaviour, on account of being far too busy poking holes in his field settings and his selections for Perth.
Whether these new green shoots of commentary emboldened Paine to take his stand, or whether it was something else entirely, we won’t know until he writes the book that a week ago probably wasn’t in that much demand.
But Paine did stand up to the Indian skipper, and two key things happened as a result.
Firstly, the Australian players went with Paine. Where previously, the Australians had quietly just taken everything said to them, even to the point of their body language being criticised and former captain Michael Clarke suggesting they “wouldn’t win shit” if they didn’t get a bit aggressive in the field, the Australians started answering back.
Paine hit back at Kohli’s jibes of being a stand-in captain. If Kohli yelled something at him, Paine replied. And often laughed in his face. Where Kohli’s send-offs increased, Paine made a point of looking Kohli in the eye and saying nothing. The bowlers’ follow-throughs started getting a bit longer, with a word or two added for good measure. Then the Australian started on the other Indian players.
Paine’s already legendary “you couldn’t possibly like him as a bloke” to Murali Vijay will, in time, go down with Ian Healy’s “you can’t get a runner just because you’re unfit” line to Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga.
Rookie opener Marcus Harris trying to talk Rishabh Pant out of his wicket early on Day 5 with “good circuit in Perth on a Monday night” was right out of The Grade Cricketer’s bible.
And with all this, and while the Australians followed their leader, the cracks have started opening behind Kohli. Ishant Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja went toe-to-toe during a break in play. Mohammed Shami called out the selectors – and almost certainly Kohli – for not picking a spinner.
The Indian captain was being owned and his team lost 5-38 in 15 overs to barely survive until drinks in the morning session on the last day.
When they met on the field to shake hands post-match, Kohli couldn’t look away fast enough, while Paine held both his handshake and stare, and followed with the left-arm pat on the shoulder for good measure. It was the body language version of, “hard luck, champ”.
Paine had faced off against Kohli, rallied his team behind him, delivered Australia’s first Test win in nine months, and now has the Australian public ready to re-engage on Boxing Day.
If the miraculous draw against Pakistan in Dubai first signalled Paine’s intent, then the Perth win has been much, much more.
Perth has been the making of Tim Paine, Australian captain.