England v Australia, 3rd Test, Headingley, 22-26 August, 2019

Ronnie Sawyer wrote:PS if Broad is odious in the view of a few of you, i dread to think how you rate the super-odious wan*er that is Paine. He's not even a good player particularly and is certainly a cock of the highest level. Horrible man.

I rate Paine especially highly at the moment, and your opinion of him makes my appreciation of him, his team's achievements, and his overall approach even greater. Having - as a result of his team's efforts - achieved what Ponting and Clarke each failed to achieve, twice, is no mean feat. I'm still hoping for 3-1, but if it ends up 2-1 or even 2-2 it's been an amazing team achievement, and he's played his part, better than most expected.

Yeah the Ponting and Clarke comparison is revealing.  Paine couldn't do much about the batting form ( except his own) but keeping an effective bowling attack with the chops and changes must have required a good deal of man mgt skills.