The greatest sports stories from the annals of the oldest cricketing journals wouldn't probably tell the story of the Australian bloke who nearly retired from first-class cricket, became his nation's Test captain a year later and went on to became the greatest stand-up comedian of our generation.

Well, the last bit is made up of course, but Tim Paine isn't far off from making a career in stand-up comedy going by his on-field jibes from behind the stumps. Retirement was a phone call away for the wicket-keeper batsman in 2017 but he ducked that bullet to later be called up to the Australian Test side for the home Ashes series.

Later when the leadership group went down in a heap in a catastrophic downfall, Paine was Australia's choice of captain, a controversial decision, a rags to riches story, if you may. But Paine clicked and how!

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He introduced the pre-game handshake gesture to sway a large chunk of the fans his way and has since then taken Australia's sledging tradition in a completely direction. A good evidence of that manifested itself at Melbourne on Friday as he tickled the funny bone by joking about Ross Taylor's ball-tracking reprieve - "he knows the bloke in the truck".

The Taylor dig is a drop in the ocean of Paine's collection of on-field remarks that has the fielders around him covering their mouths. Earlier in the series against Pakistan, his wicket-keeping counterpart, poor Mohammad Rizwan, received a compliment about his body odour.

Funny as it is, it is difficult to relate to Paine's jokes as the intention is almost always to distract batsmen from their primary job at hand. The sheer randomness of the comments make Paine a sledger like no other.

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Paine's on-field persona took a U-turn from 'captain nice' to 'captain funny' when his babysitting remark at India's Rishabh Pant became a big social media hit with the Bharat Army - India's fan group at grounds - taking it up in one of their songs.

After Pant's omission from the One Day squad, Paine suggested that Pant should come and play for the Hobart Hurricanes in the BBL. He then went on to add that Pant could also babysit his kids while he was in town.

The Indian keeper retorted in the second innings with a remark on Paine's seemingly temporary job of captaining the side - "Have you heard of a temporary captain ever? Have you heard of it? Have you heard of anything like a temporary captain ever? You don't need anything to get him out, boy."

Pant later went on to visit Paine's home and even took a photo holding his kids as the epic on-field sledge turned into friendly camaraderie off the field.

With his latest jibe at Taylor, Paine has taken over social media yet again, reminding fans once again of the new Australia - the nice, funny ones - that Paine nurtured since the sandpaper gate saga.

Earlier last year, he quipped at Murali Vijay about Virat Kohli - "I know he's your captain but you can't seriously like him as a bloke,". Quite a few blew up then, but a year later, Paine has turned around almost one and all his way with his on-field stand-up.

Feature image courtesy: AFP/ William West

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AustraliaRoss TaylorRishabh Pant