Tim Paine to step down from Test captaincy, backed Steve Smith for the role change

Tim Paine to step down from Test captaincy, backed Steve Smith for the role change.

The current Australian test captain Tim Paine has recently thrown hints on giving up the test captaincy if his team manages to defeat England in the upcoming Ashes series. Paine backed Steve Smith to be the next captain of Australia in tests.

The 36-years old Tim Paine has been under the scanner of the fans and the management after his side failed to defend the Border Gavaskar Trophy in Australia. Though the Indian side was devastated by the multiple injuries in the India-Australia test series, however, the bench strength of India managed to seal the trophy by 2-1.

“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 was quoted as saying by news.com.au.

“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.

“But by the time I came in he was growing into that role and getting better and better. Then obviously (in) South Africa events happened and he’s not doing it anymore. But yeah I would support him getting that job again,” he added.

Tim Paine indicated that he might step down from the captaincy and also backed Steve Smith for the future role for Australia.

Steve Smith’s false conduct of ball-tampering in the cricketing field cost him his 2 years of international career and he was sacked from the captaincy in 2018. Tim Paine was eventually given the leadership role after Steve Smith was banned.

“At least another six Tests,” he said referring to the one-off Test against Afghanistan and the five-Test Ashes at home.

“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.”

When asked about the Indian series, where it went wrong for the Aussies, Paine said, “…they’re very good at niggling you and trying to distract you with stuff that doesn’t really matter and there were times in that series where we fell for that.”

The skipper reckons that the fake news regulated by some of the unofficial sources distracted them. A couple of the news outlets reported that the Indian side is reluctant to travel to Brisbane, Gaba for the final test due to added restrictions in the city.

However, when the official reports came, the BCCI clarified that they only asked to soften the quarantine rules. All they wanted was players to have their meals together and be able to take part in the team meetings physically.

“The classic example was when they said they weren’t going to the Gabba so we didn’t know where we were going. They’re very good at creating these sideshows and we took our eye off the ball,” he added.

Team India conquered the fortress Gaba were Australian were unbeaten for the last 36 years and sealed the series by 2-1 in absence of marquee Test players.

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