Tim Paine is under serious pressure.
He even admitted it openly.
In his own words, “My leadership wasn’t good enough, I let the pressure of the game get to me, it affected my mood and then from there affected my performance.”
“Yesterday when I came off the ground my reflection was purely on my wicketkeeping.”
“Sitting back last night and reflecting on the whole game, I think I said to our players yesterday I’ve had a really poor game as a leader, not so much as a captain but certainly as a leader.”
Paine was caught constantly chatting to R Ashwin during India’ rearguard forcing the batsman to pull away on multiple occasions. Paine was heard calling Ashwin “a di******” at one point during these moments.
Well, full credit to Tim for being honest about his failings but he undid all the good work with his puerile defence of Steve Smith who was caught scuffing the pitch.
According to Paine, Smith was ‘shadow-batting’ and ‘trying to visualise how he’ll play”!
Full marks to Paine for trying to stand up for his errant team-mate but surely, as captain, it’s also important to play by the book and set an example.
And if Paine’s explanation sounds incredulous, well, all we can say is, you aren’t the only one!
See the video and hear it for yourself!
See Steve Smith in action and decide for yourself, what exactly he was up to!
