When he made his Boxing Day Test debut at the Melbourne Cricket Ground last year, Tim Paine could have been flattened with a feather had someone told him that 365 days on, he would be leading Australia out for the most iconic Test match in this country.

And yet, a year after making 24 in the dreary draw against England, the Tasmanian finds himself in exactly that position. The ball-tampering scandal in Cape Town in March claimed multiple victims, including skipper Steve Smith. Paine was hurriedly drafted in as the captain; he has hardly put a foot wrong off the field, and not too many on it either.