Australia With Steve Smith, David Warner Will Be Challenging For India: Tim Paine

Tim Paine, the accidental Australia captain, has not scored enough runs to show for himself and thus come under scrutiny several times. Australia lost their first Test series at home to India for the first time under his captaincy, to make the wounds deeper. But Tim Paine hinted that Australia will be a more challenging side with the presence of prolific batsmen Steve Smith and David Warner this time around.

Smith and Warner returned to side after serving their bans for the ball-tampering scandal. It looked liked they have started from where they left. Smith toppled India captain Virat Kohli to retain the top Test ranking while Warner struggled in the Ashes especially against Stuart Broad. He, however, brought his natural game back as the year progressed.

Australia are a better team now than we were: Tim Paine

Team India players know the challenge Down Under will be stiffer in 2020-21. The first Test in the Border-Gavaskar series will get underway from December 3 with talks of the Boxing Day match venue to be changed due to Covid-19 concerns. Paine believes Australia did nit get enough runs on board in the last series. However, without mentioning Warner or Smith, he hinted that Australia are a better team now.

“We think we’re a better team now than we were then and again, a lot of the time in that last series we didn’t get enough runs on the board to put them under any pressure. We didn’t score a lot of runs in that Test series and weren’t miles away,” Tim Paine told Hindustan Times over a video call.

“So, we just feel if we can get some scoreboard pressure on and score the runs we know we need to score to win Test matches then our bowling attack doesn’t let us down,” he added.

The concluding Test is slated to take place from January 3 in 2021.