Paine robbed as Aussies adapt to life indoors

Tim Paine’s plan to work on his cover drive during the global COVID-19 shutdown has inadvertently led to his car being broken into outside his home in Hobart.

Paine had moved his car onto the street so he could transform his garage into a home gym as he and the nation’s cricketers find creative ways to stay fit during the health pandemic.

But Paine’s makeshift training centre was barely a day old before he was forced to reconsider the wisdom of parking his car on the mean streets of south Hobart.

“I woke up this morning to a message from NAB saying I had some interesting movements on my account,” he said.

“I went out and the (car) door was open and my wallet and a few other things had gone.

“Actually looking at my account, the boys went straight to Maccas – the boys must have been hungry.”

But the tale of Paine’s rudimentary home gym, including the use of some old stockings to place a cricket ball inside and hang from the ceiling as an improvised bowling machine, has had an upside.

“Since that went on radio, I’ve had a message from (sponsor) Kookaburra and they're going to send me some balls on a string that I can hook up in the garage and start training.”

Paine said he was making the best of the slight change of plans to the opening weeks of his off-season, which he says has involved “probably a bit more gardening and more time watching the Wiggles” than it otherwise would have.

But while the skipper is enjoying time at home with his wife and two children, he joked some of his Test teammates might not be faring as well.

“Steve Smith, David Warner – guys like that, they're high energy, they love to train so this would be a real eye opener for them,” he said.

“I think (Smith) is doing a 10km run every day so hopefully he doesn't come back as a skeleton. But him and Marnus (Labuschagne) and Davey are probably the three I worry about.

“They don't like sitting still, and Steve and Marnus don't like not batting for too long. And Davey – he literally can't sit still.

“Davey has got a home gym so he will be in there literally 24/7 and Steve and Marnus would have some kind of contraption where they're hitting balls, or they've got their wives are feeding them balls because there's no way those two are going a week without batting.”

Cricketers around the globe have been getting creative as they look to pass the time as well as stay fit and healthy during the global slowdown.

On Monday, Paine’s women’s counterpart Meg Lanning revealed she was going to start a university degree to keep her mind occupied, while she’ll also rely on a home gym to keep herself in shape.

"I struggle doing nothing," Lanning said.