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Ashes 2019: Australia's Paine will not give up captaincy meekly to Smith

The 34-year-old suffered numerous finger injuries, bringing a pause to his test career for seven years and is the reason why he has played only 25 tests to date.​

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Australia cricketer Steve Smith's world-class performance at the Ashes has raised calls from numerous pundits and fans to hand him over the captaincy but skipper Tim Paine is in no rush to quit just yet.

The Aussies retained the Ashes with an emphatic 185-run win in the fourth test match at Old Trafford, where Steve Smith's double-century and a second-innings 82 ensured an easy victory for the tourists. 

Smith is still prohibited from the leadership roles until March after the Cape Town ball-tampering scandal last year. But, despite all of this, leading cricket writers have tipped him to regain the captaincy from wicketkeeper Paine after his brilliant batting display in England.

But Pain said he would continue to head Australia as long as he's enjoying the job and the selectors are happy with his work.

"I'm enjoying what I'm doing and whilst I can continue to contribute in some way I'll continue to do it," he told Australian media.

"I constantly talk to (coach) Justin Langer and (selector) Trevor Hohns about what might happen or how long I might go for, but I think we're all comfortable and we're all on the same page so it's all good."

The 34-year-old suffered numerous finger injuries, bringing a pause to his test career for seven years and is the reason why he has played only 25 tests to date.

"I did miss a lot in, I suppose, the prime years of my cricket career," Paine said.

"The positive of that now is that physically I'm in really good condition for my age, and I feel really good after test matches physically."

"Mentally, it's a different story but it only takes a day to recover from that. While I keep enjoying it, I'll keep doing it."

Paine during his interview also said that he now has a direct line with the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

"I'm going to save it and I might ring him if we win this one," Tim joked ahead of Australia's fifth and final Test at The Oval.

"He was pretty pumped. (His message was) along the same lines of messages we got from a lot of people back home in Australia - congratulations, everyone's proud of us, Steve Smith's a freak and make sure you finish it off this week."

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