The DEVIL that needs to rise in Tim Paine

The murky night; the full moon is out; the eerie postures of the dead trees; the wretched home, forming bloodcurdling shadows, spooky enough to send shivers of fear down the spine, the wind isn’t biting, but sufficient to fill the soul with fright. He can sense it, he’s aware of it, but there’s no way out, the Satan is silently gaping at him, he is seeking shelter, but melancholy is looking for him, it’s eyeing Tim Paine.

He played under bright sunlight, never did he know that darkness is waiting to embrace him. The kid found himself in deep waters, the monstrous waves smacked him flush on his face, he didn’t want to surrender, lightning struck him, not once, not twice, but five times- the number of instances he and his Australian team wilted versus England, he seemed clueless, not his mistake- fate had the final say.

Time moved on, has Paine?

Time and the mind are indirectly proportional to each other. Time moves on, the mind refuses, it takes its own time. A tad over a week has passed, but Paine’s mind must have come to a standstill at the Old Trafford, Manchester, pondering over the nightmare Jos Buttler took his team through. There comes a time in life when every element turns into gold by our touch, luck smiles even if it isn’t supposed to.

Paine’s stint was vice versa. He was the captain, was he the leader? Was he poised to be one? Or was it simply an attribution of the aftermath of the fiasco earlier this year that got the Australian team on their knees. He was thrown into the graveyard to inject life into the deceased, such was his team’s condition. The evil didn’t die wondering, it pounced on him, choked him and seized every inch of his veins.

He started the ODIs with a reverse-sweep and ended with a run-out, pretty much summed up the anguish he had to pain though. He walked in with the quest of doing the unfathomable, arrest his team’s slump, he had to fleece destiny. Never did he know that the evil spirit creepily smiled inside him. He scored 36 runs, not in one match, but the entire series, he bled to the bone, profusely.

Did it start appropriately?

Pre-match ritual, handshakes- is it ‘typical Australian’? No; it was nothing, but a plea to Almighty for rescuing them from the perilous circumstance, an opportunistic tactic when in trouble, something most of us employ, and equivalent to hiding the potholes on the roads. Is it a permanent solution? No; a splash of rain and the crevices will be exposed, stripped for more dreadful repercussions.

Their cricket spews venom and the ‘GOOD BOY’ image doesn’t suit their brand of cricket; Paine resorted to something which is an unknown quantity in their cricket. Hold on, it was started by Paine, the ‘Test captain’ in Johannesburg, the same was enforced on them owing to the hubbub- the Satan made them powerless, bereft of the oomph and fear, they used to generate. Something was definitely WRONG.

Cometh the moment, cometh the DEVIL 

We are the current sum of all the ages
Leaving a trail of burnt pages

Thrown into darkness as stars
We travel alone as one

Shagrath and Norwegian black metal band Dimmu Borgir’s words were hammers on the head and Paine exemplified them. He is a product of Australian cricket, merciless, brutal- it spiced up the sport. The Tasmanian masqueraded himself, his unflinching self was covered with a veil, such was the aftermath.

He looked tattered, cornered, gasping for breath, pondering over his future in ODI cricket. He is in dire requisite to let loose the devil inside himself. No ‘devil’ doesn’t mean ‘evil’ as put forth by Henry Kelly, a research professor from the University of California.

“Satan’s basic intention is to uncover wrongdoing and treachery, however overzealous and unscrupulous the means. But he’s still part of God’s administration,” the professor iterated while clarifying the meaning of ‘Satan’.Paine’s all alone, by himself, he is stranded, smokescreen encircling him. The positive point- he has roughly 120 days left for Australia’s ODI series versus South Africa in November, undoubtedly a boon for Paine.

Most importantly, he is blessed for nurturing the devil inside him and also bringing the flavor of Australian cricket, ruthless, venomous, drilling the nail in their opponents’ coffin till they end up scarred on the pitch, not employing any unfair means, but with their hostility, both verbally and with their cricketing prowess.