'Phenomenal' Paine's milestone after Gilchrist's counsel

Had there been time between seeing the ball graze the edge of Cheteshwar Pujara's bat and launching himself full-length to his right, Tim Paine's mind might well have flashed back to a week earlier in Adelaide.

It was late on the second evening of the first Test, when India were starting out their second innings holding a lead of 53 and with the pink ball in the hands of Pat Cummins not four overs old, prime time for working its after-dark magic.

Opener Mayank Agarwal nibbled outside off stump and the resultant edge – eerily similar to today's chance offered by India's obdurate No.3 – speared fast and low towards the left ankle of Joe Burns at first slip.

Paine saw it early under the floodlights, pushed off powerfully from his left leg and got his outstretched gauntlet to the ball barely above ground level only for it to bounce free before he could clasp it in his hand.

Later that night, after the team had returned to their Adelaide hotel, Paine received a text message from Australia's most successful Test keeper Adam Gilchrist who had a clear view of that fleeting moment from the television commentary box.

Gilchrist counselled the Australia captain not to dwell on the dropped catch, noting that Paine's movement and technique signalled all was well with his keeping even though the opportunity was lost and India went to stumps 1-9.

Paine texted back his thanks and his concurrence, citing the fact he went so decisively for the chance as evidence his decision making was crisp and the hours of practice he had put in during the Marsh Sheffield Shield season and then leading into the Vodafone Test Series had him sharp and hungry.

Even though Agarwal subsequently went on to top score in his team's second dig, Paine's hurt was minimal.

The opener added just seven runs before being dismissed for nine, and India were rolled for a record-low 36 as Australia stormed to an eight-wicket win before dusk the next day.

Paine was named player of the match, not solely for the five catches he went on to pouch on that famous final day but also his high score of 73 in Australia's first innings that proved decisive to the end result.

Still, frustration was clear on the skipper's face early at the MCG this morning when India's new Test opener Shubman Gill offered another tough chance from Adelaide destroyer Josh Hazlewood's first over.

As Gilchrist would later attest, it was among the hardest of catches for a keeper standing back to a pace bowler; squirting off an inside edge in totally the opposite direction to what can be rightly expected, with less than a second to sight it, react and get to where the ball's going.

That Paine got his left glove to the low chance again reinforced the strength of his technique, but that was of little solace as Gill survived and it was inked in as the first of five dropped catches by Australia's fielders across what proved an ultimately disappointing day.

But the bright light of an overcast and sultry Melbourne Sunday came less than an hour later as the result Paine had envisaged both previous times he had hurled himself across the turf crystallised in a single magic moment to remove Pujara.

Image Id: 10E19C98C30C480BAC3D4CDB212DA1CF Image Caption: Paine spilled a tough chance early on day two // Getty

Again it was Cummins, and once more it was an outside edge that was clearly not going to carry to Matthew Wade at slip, so Paine flung himself instantly sideways with right arm outstretched and this time saw the ball cradle safely in the webbing of his keeping glove.

His jubilation was palpable as he leapt to his feet, as much due to the significance of Pujara's scalp to the team's ambition and the overdue change of fortune amid a challenging session as was the personal satisfaction of claiming an instant classic.

In the Fox Sports commentary box, Gilchrist cooed his admiration of the technical expertise in making something with such a high degree of difficulty appear almost straightforward in its execution.

"He stayed low, and his left foot just goes because of the angle of the delivery," Gilchrist deconstructed during one of the countless replays aired of Paine's catch during the day.

"All of a sudden, your weight transference is so crucial.

"If you come up too high, you're not going to be able to transfer your weight and head back into the opposite direction and at no point did his feet get too wide apart.

"If your feet get too wide apart, then you can't get that power through your legs, and the energy and the drive.

“It's just trusting all the training and the technique that you work on."

Even when he was recovering from the finger fracture and subsequent attempts at repairing it that almost ended his career, Paine was regarded by others at the elite level of the craft as the most 'pure' wicketkeeper in Australian cricket outside of Test ranks.

But those injuries seemed destined to limit Paine's Test tenure to just four matches, and it's been widely documented he was about to quit first-class cricket and take up a job with a bat manufacturing company before being named as keeper for the 2017-18 Ashes campaign in Australia.

Three years on, and with the Test captaincy in his keeping after the Cape Town sandpaper incident, Paine added another significant achievement to his gilded cricket curriculum vitae.

The catch he claimed after the Pujara dismissal off his rival keeper and occasional verbal sparring partner Rishabh Pant was as close to regulation as Test cricket offers, but it yielded the 150th dismissal of his career in his 33rd match behind the stumps.

Only recently installed South Africa captain Quinton de Kock (34) can claim to have reached that milestone in less than 35 Test appearances.

And Paine got to 150 at a faster clip than Australia predecessors Gilchrist (36 Tests) and Rod Marsh (39), who also had some pretty handy bowlers feeding them a steady supply of chances.

At age 36 years and 19 days, Paine's also among the oldest Test glovemen to crest that hill.

Only former England keeper Bob Taylor (41), South Africa's Dave Richardson (38) and Australia's Wally Grout (37) have celebrated 150 dismissals at a more senior stage.

And while Paine parries questions about his longevity in the job by saying that while he's still performing his role and enjoying his craft – and clearly still hauling in catches like today's – he'll keep making himself available for selection, history shows most specialist keepers hang up the gloves by age 38.

Image Id: 0B558E2326F84EE08E382352CD30C163 Image Caption: Paine celebrates the wicket of Pujara // Getty

Gilchrist was 36 when a missed catch during a Test at Adelaide Oval convinced him it was time to go.

His successor Brad Haddin who, like Paine, played the bulk of his Test cricket in his mid-to-late 30s, was 37, and of Australia's other keepers only Hansen 'Sep' Carter (43), Bert Oldfield (42) and Jack Blackham (40) have played on into their fourth decade.

But as Gilchrist observed in distilling down the essence of Paine's catch today, if a mark of a top-class keeper is their capacity to snare half chances off genuinely fast bowlers, then the Australia captain might well retain that office for some time to come.

"I guess there's an element of ease with that you don't have to make a decision there," Gilchrist said of Paine's reflex movement to his right to remove Pujara.

"You're not thinking at all, it's pure muscle memory, as the sports scientists say.

"And if you repeat it enough times at training, you will react the way you want to (in matches) when you’re training well.

"But that was phenomenal."

Vodafone Test Series v India 2020-21

Australia Test squad: Tim Paine (c), Joe Burns, Pat Cummins, Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Moises Henriques, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, James Pattinson, Will Pucovski, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, Matthew Wade, David Warner

India Test squad: Virat Kohli (c) (first Test only), Ajinkya Rahane (vice-captain), Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Shubman Gill, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Rishabh Pant (wk), Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Siraj

First Test: Australia won by eight wickets

Second Test: December 26-30, MCG, 10.30am AEDT

Third Test: January 7-11, SCG, 10.30am AEDT

Fourth Test: January 15-19, Gabba, 11am AEDT