TIM Paine limped into the MCG dressing rooms on Wednesday night having batted for most of the day to make 71 not out amid a Tasmanian run-fest against Victoria.

Pre-destined to return to the Australian Test team it would seem, Paine blunted the Bushrangers’ attack for so long he denied Matthew Wade, the now axed national ‘keeper who was padded up ready to come in next, a chance to make the runs which could have helped keep his spot.

At the time it seemed curious that Paine had been called away from the CA XI team, where he had been playing with a bunch of kids against England, to play as a specialist batsman for Tasmania.

Tim Paine reveals he is battling a chronic foot injury. Picture: Luke Bowden Source: News Corp Australia

More so because, as he revealed on his arrival, barefoot, to talk to a few reporters, the 32-year-old gloveman long plagued by career-stalling injuries, revealed he was battling the foot injury plantar fasciitis.

“I’ve had it for a few months. But it only hurts at the end of a day’s play,” he said.

BELOW: SIX REASONS WHY WE’RE STUMPED BY PAINE’S SELECTION

“It’s not 100 per cent, but it will like Brisbane more than Hobart. It doesn’t like the cold.”

This injury though, unlike all the finger issues which cruelled what could have been a solid Test career when it began way back in 2010, wasn’t enough for national selectors to overlook Paine who selection chairman Trevor Hohns said was “identified as an international player a long time ago”.

LISTEN! In a special episode of Cricket Unfiltered we analyse Australia’s controversial Test team for the first Ashes Test.

You can download Cricket Unfiltered from the iTunes store

That was in 2009 and in two years Paine played four Tests, making his debut with now captain Steve Smith in 2010, and 26 one-day internationals, making an ODI century in England.

But he badly hurt his right index finger in 2010, in a charity match, and through seven operations to fix it, Paine fell off the national radar, until now, even though his re-inclusion has come in curious circumstances.

Paine didn’t keep for Tasmania this week and he didn’t even play in Tassie’s previous two Shield games because he couldn’t keep. Wade moved home from Victoria and, as the incumbent Test keeper, had to take the gloves.

Tim Paine (L) made his Test debut with Steve Smith in 2010. Source: Getty Images

Paine hadn’t been behind the stumps much for Tassie before Wade turned up either. He played three matches for the Tigers in last year’s Shield season, the last three of the summer too, as Jake Doran was picked in front of him.

The season before that, Paine played just four Shield games, two which were solely as a batsman.

In March this year Paine was offered a one-year deal by Cricket Tasmania after Wade moved south. That’s when retirement flashed up on his radar.

His first child had been born, and a job offer came from Kookaburra in Melbourne. The one-year offer turned to two amid some coaching upheaval, and Paine stayed on, thinking white ball cricket was his future.

While surprised at his Test recall, Paine said he never thought he was a spent force at international level, despite his lack of keeping work with Tasmania.

And given this latest chance too, Paine was confident he was more than ready to deliver on the promise he showed all those years ago.

“I’m a little bit surprised, but excited and grateful for the opportunity,” Paine said.

“I have been working hard the past 12 months, probably more towards white ball cricket, I thought I could still play international cricket with the white ball.

Tim Paine strapping the finger that almost ended his Test career. Source: News Corp Australia

“I was in the last T20 side for Australia and it’s not as if I haven’t been keeping. I keep every day of my life. I’m as ready as I have ever been with the gloves.

“It’s been a hard road to get back here and I am extremely proud of the way I have gone about things over the past five or six years and I feel like I am more ready now than when I played, more mature, I know my game better. I feel in a good place.

“To have this opportunity is amazing and it’s mine to do what I can with.”

SIX REASONS WE’RE STUMPED

Weird facts around Tim Paine’s Test selection.

1. PAIN will equal the Australian record of missing the most games between Test appearances currently held by Brad Hogg, who was not selected for 78 Tests between playing in 1996 and 2003.

2. PAINE’S only first-class hundred (215) came in 2006. Australian coach Darren Lehmann made his final first-class hundred in 2007. The ton came in just Paine’s fifth first-class game and remains his only century in 91 first-class matches.

Tim Paine plays a shot against India in 2010. Source: AFP

3. STEVE Smith and Paine made their Test debut in the same game — against Pakistan at Lord’s in July 2010. Smith has played 56 Tests. Paine has played four.

4. EVERY player in the Australian team when Paine last played in a Test, in India in October 2010, has retired from first-class cricket.

5. PAINE required seven surgeries on his troublesome right index finger, including a bone graft, after it was broken by a 148km/h Dirk Nannes thunderbolt in November 2010.

6. PAINE has kept wicket in just five of Tasmania’s past 23 Sheffield Shield matches. Tom Triffitt, Jake Doran and Matthew Wade have been chosen ahead of him in that time.

TIM PAINE

Born: December 8, 1984, in Hobart

Test debut: v Pakistan, Lord’s, July 2010

Tests: 4

Runs: 287 @ 35.9

Catches: 16. Stumpings: 1