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Following Jason Gillespie’s resignation, Tim Paine would be “very interested” in submitting his name to lead the Adelaide Strikers should South Australia opt to divide the state and BBL coaching responsibilities.
This off-season, South Australia is undergoing a major restructure, with Gillespie and Tim Nielsen, the longtime general manager of high performance, leaving. In addition to resigning as head coach of the women’s state team, Luke Williams—who is now in high demand as a coach in T20 leagues—will continue to lead the WBBL squad and has signed on as an assistant coach in the BBL.
Paine is eager to advance in his profession but has maintained a realistic assessment of where he would stand as an assistant coach for Strikers during the BBL season, when they made it to the Challenger final.
“Would I like to coach the Adelaide Strikers? Of course, I would,” Paine said on SEN Tassie Breakfast. “But at the moment, they have no GM of cricket and a number of other roles that need to be filled before any of that happens.
“They need to decide with South Australia and the Strikers, do you go down the same model they’ve just had of one coach, in which case I cannot do it, [but] if they were to split the roles, I would be very interested certainly in having a crack at getting the job.”
“But I’ve been coaching for about six months and it’s a big job and I’d imagine it would get a lot of experienced coaches interested in that job as well. But I would love to go through the process because, one, it would be a great learning curve for me as a professional coach, to go through some sort of process would be awesome for my development, but like any coach of course you want to coach in the biggest leagues you can get in.”
Paine added that it wasn’t the right time in his career to consider a combined state and BBL role as he would not want to move his family out of Tasmania. “If you are looking at a Big Bash job and state job, that is enormous,” he said.