‘Not concerned about being liked’ by the opposition – Tim Paine

Since taking over as captain after the ball-tampering incident in March, Paine has overseen a series of changes in the way Australia go about things.

For instance, he has made it a practice to have handshakes with each member of the opposition team before a series.

But he came under criticism from former skipper Michael Clarke, who said the team wouldn’t win much by “worrying about being liked”.

Paine said that wasn’t the point at all. “No one has spoken about being liked, certainly by the opposition," Paine told ESPNcricinfo. “We've spoken about wanting to get the Australian public's trust and make sure that clearly you want the Australian public and cricket fans to like or love the Australian Test team.

“Certainly there's that aspect, but from an opposition perspective we're not concerned about being liked one bit.”

That, however, doesn’t mean Australia won’t play “hard cricket” like they have always done, and the returns of the likes of Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins for the series against India will help them do that.

"We're still going to play hard Australian cricket, as Michael put it, that's not going to change,” said Paine. “Clearly, Johannesburg was a really strange circumstance and a difficult game to play in for everyone, but going into Dubai the guys competed as hard as they could and they'll continue to, and we've got some more senior guys coming back now.

"With Hazlewood, Starc and Cummins, that's only going to help guys grow with confidence around them. With guys like Travis Head and Marcus Harris, when you've got Hazlewood and Starc and Cummins running in, it's a bit easier to play that confident, aggressive style of cricket that Australia want to play and our team certainly wants to play.”

Paine said hard cricket was about playing to your strengths. “Our No.1 strength is our skill, so we've got to play hard cricket in terms of making it difficult for guys to bat against us and difficult to bowl against us – we want to make it an uncomfortable environment for people to play against us, but we want to do it mainly by our skills.”

That said, if someone in the opposition likes hard-nosed competition, the Australians will give it right back. "It depends on the individual. I know some guys enjoy it, [to] some guys it doesn't matter," Paine said. "In Test cricket and with some of the guys in the Indian side there's going to be times where there's a bit of heat out in the middle, and guys are going to be right into the contest.

“The focus for us has got to be on delivering our skill as well as we possibly can, so if guys want to get involved in a bit of that stuff to get themselves going, then that's great. But we now know the difference between what's right and what's wrong, and what's expected.

“We're not going to be going over the top, but certainly you've got to stand up for your team and your teammates, and I'm sure when the time comes for that we'll be doing that. But the main focus for us will be to play the best cricket we can.”

The first Test between Australia and India will be played in Adelaide from 6 December.