Tim Paine

The 33-year-old believes he can not only lead the Australian team through its most tumultuous period in recent memory, but carry the torch for years to come.

"I'm going to be doing everything I can to be doing it for as long as I can," he said.

"At the moment, I'm captain for as long as I'm around. Steve's got a two-year ban from the leadership role, but he's somebody who I'll be speaking to quite closely.

"I feel as good as I've ever felt. I was saying to somebody this morning I'm 33 going on 22. My body feels great."

Former Test opener Rick McCosker has been appointed by Cricket Australia to head a panel that will review that culture but Paine does not believe major change is needed.

“Obviously we’ve had this incident which has brought everything to a head,” Paine said in Hobart on Thursday.

“But during the Ashes there wasn’t a lot said about our culture. “Looking back it’s just a few little things that we can tweak and do a little bit better as a team.

“If we do that I think the Australia public will jump back on board pretty quickly.”

Sure, the wicketkeeper is part of a team, but he's alone in it.

Like whoever keeps the ships from shore, he's on an island, a small redoubt absorbing a constant tide.

Unnoticed when his job is done, only taking focus when misadventure strikes.

You have to feel for Tim Paine. He didn't ask to be picked. Of course he would be glad.

Of course as a professional he wanted it. But you wonder if there was any part of him that thought, not now. I'm not ready. Some other time.