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

احدث اجدد واروع واجمل واشيك 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.

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.

Ian Bell spearheaded the England attack.
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.''


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