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Thursday March 28, 2024

Australia ‘grit’ hailed after ‘best win’ for decades

By AFP
December 20, 2018

PERTH: Nine months on from the biggest scandal to hit Australian cricket, the embattled team have come out the other side with a victory that on Wednesday was hailed as their most important in decades.

In beating India by 146 runs in Perth, Tim Paine’s men pulled off their first Test win since the ball-tampering saga exploded in South Africa in March.

The cheating row saw coach Darren Lehmann quit, captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner banned, and Cricket Australia dump a swathe of top executives.

The unassuming Paine was installed as skipper and Justin Langer as coach, vowing to change their win-at-all-costs culture and rebuild a team that had been rocked to its core.

It has taken time and Paine, who has proven to be an exceptional wicketkeeper and a savvy captain, admitted that winning back faith and respect from fans and the media has been challenging.

“I’m relieved personally,” he said after his maiden win as skipper eased the pressure.

Test great Shane Warne summed it up in a tweet after the victory, saying: “This was the best Test win for Aust in a long time. Tim Paine take a bow - we now have a Test captain.”

Former England skipper Michael Vaughan was also impressed by the way Paine has handled himself.

“Quality performance from Australia this week ... Tim Paine is a very very good leader who deserves all the credit,” he tweeted.

Importantly, the win in Perth to level the four-Test series 1-1 was also warmly embraced by the country’s sometimes-scathing media, with The Australian hailing “the grit of a new Australia cricket era”.

“The triumph over India in Perth might be the most important Test win by an Australian side since Allan Border led his side out of the wilderness in the 1989 Ashes,” said the newspaper’s chief cricket writer Peter Lalor.

“Paine’s men may not have gone as long without success and they haven’t even won the series, but rarely has an outfit suffered as much as this one in the past nine months.”