Last Updated on 10 months ago by Charbel Coorey
Tim Paine has called for the public to back the batters following Australia’s defeat to South Africa in the World Test Championship (WTC) Final. The former captain believes Australia is quick to drop players, rather than support them.
“We’re very quick in this country, particularly with our cricket team, to move on players,” Paine said on SEN. “We always want to see if the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”
Quality players are extremely hard to replace – Tim Paine
Paine went on to point out that Australia have struggled to replace David Warner, and risk the same fate if they drop one or both of Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labuschagne.
“If we’ve learnt nothing out of the last 18 months to two years… it’s that players of that quality are extremely hard to replace,” Paine said.
“David Warner, if you look back to just before he retired… the six months leading into that… the guy is one of our best ever cricketers, and everyone in the media and the casual cricket watchers are like ‘he’s gotta go, he’s gotta go’.
“We’re two years down the track and we still haven’t cemented his replacement. That’s how hard these guys are to find and replace. So you don’t just have a bad Test in England (WTC Final) and then dump players of Khawaja and Marnus’ quality.”
ALSO READ: WTC Final shuts the gate of 1999 heartbreak – Allan Donald
Khawaja and Labuschagne found the going difficult in the 2023-25 WTC cycle, often dismissed in similar fashion behind the wicket. Khawaja’s 1,428 runs at 39.66 looks good on paper, but his average drops to 25.35 against pace since the start of 2024. Labuschagne managed 974 runs at just 27.82 overall.
It was a similar story for David Warner at the backend of his Test career. Warner managed 1,542 runs in his last 50 innings at an average of 31.5, well down on his career average of 44.59.
However, Paine has backed Khawaja and Labuschagne to come good over the next 12 months, headlined by a huge Ashes series.
“They [Khawaja and Labuschagne] are a huge part of that team for the next year at least being successful with what’s around the corner and the quality of cricket, particularly with England coming out for the Ashes,” Paine said.
“Those high-quality international players do not grow on trees. We’ve learnt that post-Warner retirement, we’ve learnt that post-Warne retirement. Great players are hard to replace, and I am backing both of those two to have a big 12 months.”
Interestingly, Paine landed a significant coaching role with Cricket Australia, according to a CODE Sports report on June 19.
Australia’s next assignment is a three-match series in West Indies starting on Wednesday June 25 in Barbados.
