A year after he was set to walk away from cricket, Tim Paine is expected to emerge from the ball-tampering wreckage as Australia's 46th Test captain.
Paine will lead the tourists for the rest of the third Test against South Africa, with Steve Smith and David Warner both temporarily standing down from their leadership roles.
The wicketkeeper is yet to officially step into the hot seat that is often described as the nation's second-most important job after the Prime Minister, as he is taking the reins in a caretaker captaincy mid-match.
But Paine is likely to don the blazer and toss the coin in what will be his 13th Test, with the four-Test series finale to start in Johannesburg on Friday,
Cricket Australia (CA) is investigating the team's plan to cheat at Newlands, which Smith confessed to after day three of the contest.
It is incredibly unlikely that Smith and/or Warner will be captaining the team in the final chapter of the four-Test series, leaving Paine as the obvious choice for selectors and CA's board.
If that transpires, Paine would follow in the footsteps of Ricky Ponting and become the second Tasmanian to captain Australia's Test team.
The 33-year-old gloveman was a shock selection in Australia's Ashes squad last November, at which point state teammate Matthew Wade was keeping ahead of him for Tasmania.
Pundits were stunned. Coach Darren Lehmann had scored a first-class century more recently than Paine, who himself admitted he was "very close" to retiring at the end of a 2016-17 Sheffield Shield season in which he struggled to get a game for Tasmania.
"I'd pretty much accepted a job with Kookaburra and we were going to move (to Melbourne)," Paine said at the time.
Paine and Smith ironically both made their Test debuts in 2010 at Lord's, but the stumper suffered a recurring finger injury later that year. It required seven rounds of surgery and threatened to end his career.
Paine has been a revelation since his Ashes recall, offering much-needed composure behind the stumps and while batting with the tail.
Paine memorably brokered peace and took charge of Warner's ugly staircase stoush with Quinton de Kock that overshadowed the first Test, physically forcing his vice-captain to retreat to the rooms.
"He's a really good calming influence on Steve, a really good sounding board," Australia's fielding coach and former Test keeper Brad Haddin said last week.
"In the game, they spend a lot of time talking to each other.
"He's got a really good cricket brain."
Paine has formed a series of key partnerships with Australia's tail, during the current series and also in the recent Ashes.
"Tim played really well. Tim's probably been our stand-out batsman for the tour so far," Lehmann said after day two in Cape Town.
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