Bell-ted: Paine's team can't turn the tide against rampant England

Still on song ... England opener Ian Bell continued
his good form from the Ashes, scoring a match-high 124 not out against
the Tim Paine-led Prime Minister's XI in their one-day match in Canberra
yesterday. Photo: Getty Images









MICHAEL CLARKE found out how hard the top job was in
Sydney last week, and yesterday it was PM's XI captain Tim Paine's turn
to be steamrolled by the mean machine from England in Canberra.




Handed the captaincy to give national selectors a chance
to assess his credentials as a future Test skipper, Paine performed
serviceably but was hamstrung by a largely innocuous attack and some
imperious batting from the visitors, most notably Ian Bell.




Unlike Clarke and Ricky Ponting, who endured lean runs
with the bat against England, Paine - not a mainstay of the Test side -
at least ensured one half of his job description was fulfilled, hitting a
crisp 50 off 59 balls. Paine has plenty on his plate, not least his
wicketkeeping duties let alone marshalling traffic and swinging bowling
changes, and admitted last night he still had plenty of improvement as a
captain.



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As a keeper you're always in the game anyway so you're always under
pressure,'' said Paine, seen by many as the main challenger to Clarke to
succeed Ponting as the long-term Test captain.


''There were probably a few times there if the ball was
nicked to me I'm not sure I would have caught it because I was worried
about fields and that sort of stuff. I haven't done it too much, but I'm
sure going forward I'll get better at it.''



Not even a generous discount from the Duckworth-Lewis
system could prevent England from maintaining their supremacy over an
Australian side, winning by seven wickets with nine balls to spare.



''It was just one of those games, an opportunity for me to practise being in charge of a team,'' Paine said.



''It's something I haven't done. I'll sit down and have a
think about it and have a chat to some people after this is all done
and come up with a few things that I can improve on and some things that
I did well.''



As Australian captains have learnt in recent seasons,
their performance in the field is at the mercy of the bowlers and
England's batsmen have the wood over the current crop.



Paine was not afraid to swing the changes and, showing a
willingness to deviate from convention, introduced spinner Xavier
Doherty into the attack after just six overs. Although the move did not
pay dividends, it showed imagination and initiative.



''Ian Bell was hitting them around early, he was in good
rhythm so we tried to throw a few different styles of bowling at him
early but it didn't work,'' Paine said.



Bell, nicknamed ''the Sherminator'' by Shane Warne on
these shores four years ago, again showed why he should be considered
more seriously than the hapless movie character he is said to resemble.
Opening the batting, Bell made a match-winning 124 not out off 102
deliveries to steer his side over the line.



His century, Paine said, was the difference between the
two sides as the PM's XI's top four, the captain included, failed to
convert their starts into something substantial.



''[It] would have been nice to do what Ian did and go on
and get a big hundred but for me to spend a bit of time in the middle
after the last six or seven weeks was valuable time going into the next
month or so,'' Paine said.



Two days out from his long-awaited international comeback
Brett Lee, bowled a brisk first over but failed to complement his 26
off 18 balls with a bag of wickets, though he did claim the scalp of
Kevin Pietersen.



''I thought he had some good pace and rhythm early. He
said he was a bit tired after running a heap of twos when he was
batting,'' Paine said.



''I think Brett showed some really encouraging signs.



''He got a few balls to swing early, he was hitting the
gloves reasonably hard in the first three- or four-over spell so I
thought he was pretty impressive. He's still got a bit left in him,
Brett.''