As Australia's 46th Test captain, Tim Paine knows he has a responsibility to not only lead by example, but also through helping teammates on and off the field.
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Paine's shrewd mind has also turned to the bigger picture since taking charge of the side in wake of the ball-tampering fiasco of South Africa. This includes how cricket can open itself up and better prepare players, eschewing the belief that the best coaches are those who have played at the top level.
During a sports leadership tour of the US in August the Tasmanian witnessed first hand how things can be done differently, particularly after dealing with golfer Jordan Spieth's long-time swing coach and native Australian, Cameron McCormick.
"He was a college golfer and a lot of the guys we spoke to over there were guys that had got to a certain level of the sport, whether it was college or minor leagues or smaller golf tours, and probably by 22 or 23 realised they weren't going to make it at the highest level and made a decision at that early age to go into coaching," Paine told Fairfax Media.
"By the time they are 45 or 50, they have been coaching for 20 years, and it just makes a huge difference. In Australia, in cricket, in a number of sports, we tend to go towards the ex-player going straight into coaching. That is as much a player thing. [We] need to become more open to players who haven't played at the highest level but have a really high understanding of being a coach and the skills involved in that.
"The players have always been: 'Nah, we want someone who has been there and done that' but there are a number of guys out there in Australia who perhaps don't get a look in because they haven't played at a certain level. From what I have seen in America, they are the guys that are making the best coaches."
Paine has always enjoyed watching golf but, unlike many cricketers, rarely gets out for a round. Regardless, he said he was "blown away" by the level of detail McCormick provided.
"It opened my mind to what is possible with a batting coaching, in particular, in this sport. I think there is a lot space for us all to grow," he said.
Paine made the trip along with outgoing Cricket Australia chief James Sutherland, team performance boss Pat Howard and coach Justin Langer, ahead of what is expected to be an intriguing summer of cultural change. The trip also involved time with baseball's Chicago Cubs and the NFL's Dallas Cowboys.
"We went over there, I know I as a player, for the Australian cricket team to improve. There is also the coaching side, the admin side, the organisational side, all different levels but one of the things I liked that he [McCormick] spoke a lot about was skill rather than technique," Paine said.
"I think in cricket that we just get so worried about technique and how something looks - he was just all about the skill itself. One of his quotes was, 'skill trumps style'. That is something from cricket that we can really look at because it is very individual how everyone bats and how guys look at the crease. We are probably too caught up in that.
"He talked all the time about skill, not the technique, and talked about every player having a unique fingerprint. In cricket, we get caught up on the technique, rather than the skill, and how it looks, rather than the result. That was really interesting."
Paine is the family-oriented, steady leader Australia need as the sport works to reclaim the faith of the Australian public. Winning will go a long way to helping that but that seems tricky, particularly in his first full Test series as skipper. That task begins in earnest against Pakistan in Dubai on Sunday, in a part of the world where the tourists - even when at full strength - have not won since 2011. That's been a skill and technique issue but, under Paine, Australia are thinking differently.
This shapes as Australia's weakest team since the World Series Cricket split of 1977, for there has not been a time since when the team has been without four of its elite players, in this case Steve Smith, David Warner, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood. Even the 1985 Ashes tourists, having lost talent to the rebel tour of South Africa, were not without their two best batsmen and they still had one of their top two quicks.
Paine, however, prefers to look on this predicament as being "another challenge".
"That's all right. It's another opportunity for guys to stand up. We are going somewhere like Dubai, where we have to think differently about the way we play. It might actually be a blessing in disguise. It's kind of going to force us to play a different style," he said.
As he points out, "we haven't had a huge amount of success as a country in the sub-continent. Sometimes when you go over without your best team, you go about things slightly differently. It's another opportunity."
Paine knows all about making the most of an opportunity. His international, even domestic, career seemingly over - he was close to accepting a job with Kookaburra Sports in Melbourne - he was a shock call-up for last year's Ashes series when selectors moved on from Matthew Wade and Peter Nevill. He embraced his return, to the point he was elevated into the captaincy for the final Test in South Africa amid the off-field turmoil.
He also knows all about challenges, having had seven operations on his right index finger as a result of a Dirk Nannes delivery thundering into his batting gloves during a twenty20 clash between Australia and an Australian Cricketers Association All Stars team at the start of the 2010-11 season, forcing him out of the summer. He had just played four Tests, appearing set for a long career.
There was a similar incident at the start of the following summer, meaning he also missed that season. Initial surgery involved taking bone from his hip and putting into the reconstructed finger, which is arthritic and hurts on cold winter mornings. He was also forced to adjust his grip on the bat, while the mental battle to get back, then not to worry about being hit, was another hurdle.
His uncle, former AFL coach Robert Shaw, said Paine had "always been a fighter and tough competitor as a young kid".
"He has had numerous operations and bone grafts and couldn’t wrap his hand around a bat properly for three years, so those fighting qualities kept him in the hunt," he said.
"He never stopped believing, never bagged those that dropped him from the Tassie side and was always one of the first to teach, guide and mentor young 'keepers, despite the fact they took his place or are challenging for his position. He will be the first to mentor young Alex Carey at any opportunity, for example."
Fellow Tasmanian Ricky Ponting, Paine's first Test skipper and part-time Australian team coach, worked with Paine during the losing mid-year one-day series against England.
"I couldn't be any more impressed with how Tim is handling the whole thing. It is, obviously, a really tough situation for anybody to be in, let alone a young captain to be in that sort of situation," he said.
"But I think the way he has fronted up to everything, whether that be publicly, with the media, certainly the way he has handled the boys inside the dressing room and around the team has been absolutely first class. I know all his teammates love him and I know all his teammates believe he is doing a great job and he is the right man for the job. You can't argue with what he has done as a Test player over the past 12 months, either."
Shaw, who coaches football and cricket at Melbourne's Brighton Grammar School, said the father of two was the right man to usher in cultural change.
"Tim demands very high standards. The selectors went with technique in wicketkeeping and respect and balance in leadership and culture," he said.
"He has the capability to lead and unite and will bring a measured, calm approach and foster the 'spirit of cricket’, which he strongly believes in. But don’t confuse this with a tempering of competitiveness. He just believes there is a certain character to the game of cricket that he strongly believes in.
"The opposition really respect him. I have no doubt he will unite this young team and restore public pride in their cricket team. I realise I am biased but it’s an inspired choice at this transition stage in Australian cricket."
Tasmanian teammate George Bailey, who has led Australia in the sport's short forms, said Paine's long battle with injury had helped him to have greater empathy for teammates struggling for form or just to break into the side. That trait will most likely be needed in the UAE, where an inexperienced squad - there are five uncapped tourists - will need words of wisdom and composure, particularly on long, draining afternoons in what shape as sweltering conditions.
However, what he will also need to do is concentrate on his own form, sage advice Steve Waugh gave Ponting, who has passed this on to Paine.
"At the end of the day, that's the challenge for him now. With this huge responsibility, he has got to find a way to play his best cricket as well. That's what captains have to do," Ponting said.
"Not so much worry about what everyone else is doing in his team. You have got to trust that they will look after themselves and get themselves prepared and more importantly perform when it counts. But he has got to separate the captaincy from his own game and try and bring this group together for the next few months and right through the Australian summer and then see what comes of it."
While there has been much focus on building a new culture, including, as revealed by Fairfax Media, developing a player-driven charter of expected team and individual standards, Paine understands winning is still the best way to forge comradeship.
"We want to build a culture that makes people want to be better and produce not only better cricketers but better people. If we can do that, that's the sort of environment people want to be involved in and that culture spreads really quickly through the team rather than having to try and sell your culture all the time - just set that culture, live that culture, and guys that want to be involved will carry it through," he said.
"We are certainly making some changes and it's something we are really serious about but we are also aware that we need to be playing a high level of cricket and winning games."
