Tim Paine has put his hat in the ring to coach the Adelaide Strikers in BBL|14 after Jason Gillespie resigned from the role last week.
Gillespie will step away from his position as Strikers and South Australia coach to take up the job in charge of the Pakistan Test team and while Ryan Harris has taken the state job on an interim basis, no update has been made on the BBL role.
With Gillespie to leave the role in June, Paine says he’d love to apply for the Strikers job if the SACA hires separate coaches for their state team and Big Bash franchise.
Paine worked under Gillespie in BBL|13 with the Strikers in an assistant coaching role.
“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.
“Then they need to decide with the South Australian side and the Strikers, do you go down the same model they've just had of one coach? In that case, I cannot do it.
“If they were to split the roles, I would be very interested, certainly in having a crack at getting that job.”
While Paine has only been in the coaching ranks for six months, he says he’d be happy to apply for the job alongside other highly-touted coaches both for his ambitions to coach at the highest level and for his professional development.
“But I've been coaching for about six months, and it is a big job,” Paine said.
“I'd imagine a lot of experienced coaches would be interested in that job as well.
“But I would love to go through the process because 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 league you can get in.”
Paine also explained why he’d only chase the job if it were for the Strikers only, with the former keeper unwilling to move his family to South Australia full-time at this time.
The 39-year-old thinks that both models work where a governing body picks a coach to oversee both state and BBL programs as well as picking separate managers for the different sides.
“I'm not at the stage where I will be moving my family full time to Adelaide or any other state,” Paine said.
“The timing of that is not quite right. If you're looking at a Big Bash job and a state job (combined), that is enormous.
“I think you can do both (have just a BBL coach or a coach that manages both sides) and that's not to sit on the fence.
“You've seen certainly in Western Australia with the Justin Langer and now Adam Voges model, it can work.
“You've also seen split ones work, but where it's split, there’s got to be some real trust and some real collaboration between the two programs.
“I think you've just got to be really clear on what you expect from each coach, particularly the Big Bash coach.
“If you are going to go down the state model of Western Australia, they need to be really clear on this is the job you're applying for.”
Paine has only been retired from First Class cricket since March 2023.