{"id":25043,"date":"2021-01-21T05:50:52","date_gmt":"2021-01-21T06:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=25043"},"modified":"2021-01-21T09:03:12","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T09:03:12","slug":"the-most-fiery-tim-paine-defence-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=25043","title":{"rendered":"The most fiery Tim Paine defence yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Test batsman Peter Handscomb has labelled the avalanche of criticism dumped on Australia captain Tim Paine "an absolute joke", in the wake of the Border-Gavaskar series defeat to India<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cricket greats Sunil Gavaskar, Michael Vaughan<\/a>, Kevin Pietersen<\/a> and Darren Gough<\/a> have all delivered Paine a hellacious roasting, while former Australia heroes Mark Taylor<\/a>, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and Brett Lee<\/a> have remained much more measured but picked out faults of their own.<\/p>\n

An astonished cricket world watched on as India, despite being without seven of their first-choice players, pulled off a three-wicket win in enthralling scenes late on day five at The Gabba<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The win consigned Australia to their first defeat at the Brisbane venue since 1988, in which a West Indies side packed with legends of the game had stormed to a nine-wicket win.<\/p>\n

But Handscomb has been left dumbfounded at the extraordinary amount of backlash Paine has copped.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"I can't believe the fallout from this Test is his captaincy. That's just an absolute joke," Handscomb said.<\/p>\n

"The poor guy's batting beautifully, making some good runs, taking the game on and leading with that intent, which is really good to see.<\/p>\n

"For it to come down to some perceived captaincy ideas is ridiculous.<\/p>\n

"The whole team's there and everyone's trying to do their best \u2026 it's a bit of a joke that the takeaway seems to be his captaincy."<\/p>\n

Paine isn't the only member of Australia's set-up who's drawn fierce criticism.<\/p>\n

Matthew Wade's Test career could be over after the left-hander managed just 173 runs at an average of 21.62 from eight innings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Speedster Mitchell Starc<\/a> (11 wickets, average of 40.72) is also fighting to keep his spot for the Test tour of South Africa, while the position of champion off-spinner Nathan Lyon (nine wickets, average of 55.11) isn't in doubt but he was ineffective against India.<\/p>\n

And fill-in opening batsman Marcus Harris (43 runs, average of 21.50) is likely to be replaced by Will Pucovski if he's fit, while star David Warner<\/a> will remain at the top of the order but registered just 67 runs at an average of 16.75 in the series.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong> clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Test batsman Peter Handscomb has labelled the avalanche of criticism dumped on Australia captain Tim Paine "an absolute joke", in the wake of the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25043"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25043"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25045,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25043\/revisions\/25045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}