Cricket Australia (CA) has announced the coaching team for the Prime Minister’s XI, which will play a three-day first-class match against the visiting team India. The former Australian Test captain has been named as the head coach of the Prime Minister’s XI.

PM XI match is not a part of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy

Indians will face the Prime Minister’s XI after the first match of the five-match Test series against the hosts Australia. It is a special match that is not a part of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. It is an annual cultural match as PM XI face the touring side. It can be played in any format.

PM XI will face Indians at Manuka Oval, Canberra. It will be played on November 30, 31, and December 1. It will be India’s first meeting against PM XI since their 2007/08 tour. The last time Indians faced PM XI was in January 2004, when Indians won the thriller by one run in a 50-over match at Canberra.

Tim Paine will be PM XI head coach

Former Australian Test captain Tim Paine has been chosen as the head coach of the Prime Minister’s XI. CricketACT coaches Erin Osborne and Justin McNally will play the assistant coach roles for the team.

Check the complete Australia tour schedule for India

India will start their Border-Gavaskar Trophy campaign on November 22 from Perth. So, their match against the Prime Minister’s XI will be played after the Perth Test.

After the Canberra tour match, Adelaide will host the day/night pink-ball Test match, starting on December 6. The Gabba, Brisbane, will host the third Test of the series from December 14. 

Melbourne will host the Boxing Day Test (December 26-30), and Sydney will host the New Year Test (January 3-7, 2025) of the series. 

Since 2016/17, India have been holding the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, as they won the last four Test series, all by 2-1 margins. Last time, Australia won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at home in the 2014/15 season, when India lost the Test series by 2-0. 

Australia secured a close victory against New Zealand in the second Test match in Christchurch. Despite a shaky start at 80/5, Mitchell Marsh, Alex Carey, and Pat Cummins staged a remarkable comeback to chase down 279 runs.

Paine’s critique on Australia’s batting form

However, former Australia captain Tim Paine expressed dissatisfaction with the team’s performance despite the series sweep against New Zealand. He said, “I’m disappointed. We’re a better team than them (New Zealand) and it was the same against the West Indies, there seems to be a bit of a pattern. Not scoring enough runsâ€æ you can’t always believe what they’re telling you but the leadership and coaching and captain and selectors say, ‘we have no concerns with our batters’. Well, I do now.”

Paine highlights worries about facing England and India

Paine criticized the inconsistency of the top-order batsmen, pointing out their struggles since the West Indies Test series. He strongly questioned the team’s ability to compete against England and India later in 2024, especially with concerns regarding the form of players like Steve Smith, Usman Khawaja, and Marnus Labuschagne. He added, “There are more questions coming out of the last three or four Tests than answers, and we need to find some answers pretty quickly.” 

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Paine particularly highlighted worries about facing India’s formidable fast bowling lineup featuring Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami. He said some more in this and added, “We might not beat New Zealand, we’ve lost a Test to West Indies, we wouldn’t beat England if they were playing well with a full-strength sideâ€æ India are certainly going to trouble us with Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, so there are some concerns.” 

Despite Australia’s rise to the second spot in the World Test Championship standings, with 8 wins, 3 losses, and 1 draw from 12 matches, Paine emphasized the need for improvement to maintain competitiveness against top-ranked teams.

On Friday, March 17, former Australian captain Tim Paine retired from all formats of cricket after the Sheffield Shield match which is held between Tasmania and Queensland in Hobart. When the 4-day match is about to end in a draw his teammates gave him a guard of honor as a result Paine gets emotional.

In his last match, he scored 42 in just 62 balls for Tasmania in the first innings of the Sheffield Shield while in the second innings, he was unbeaten for 3 runs. He played his first debut match in the year of 2005 against South Australia. After playing 95 successful Sheffield Shield Match he ended his first-class career.

Tim Paine is a record holder on the Sheffield Shield. He holds the record for most dismissals in first-class cricket by a Tasmanian wicketkeeper – 295. He made his comeback in August 2022 after taking a mental health break last year. In the 2022-23 domestic season, he played only 7 matches and scored 156 runs with an average of 17.33. Paine with an average of 30 scored over 4000 runs in first-class cricket & was part of 2 title-winning campaigns with Tasmania.

Tim Paine played his last first-class match for Tasmania on the Sheffield Shield

But before the start of the legendary Ashes in 2021, he resigned as captain, when he was regarded as the best wicketkeeper of the Australian side. Paine stepped down and take out of the series after allegations of some adultery news became public.

After that Pat Cummins took his place as test captain of Cricket Australia and it leads Australia to Ashes victory. Tim Paine did a great job when the Australia senior national team was going through the ball-tampering scandal in 2018. Paine replaced Smith and did a great job as the skipper of australian cricket team.

For Australia Paine played 35 tests, and lead them in 23 of them. Tim Paine was the captain when team India win their maiden test series in 2018-19 and in his time India won the Gabba fortress in 2020-21, completing a second successive series win. But in the end, Paine had a good record of winning 11 matches out of 23 and losing only 8 matches.