An odd feud between former England bowler Monty Panesar and Australia returning skipper Steve Smith has kicked off on the eve of the first Ashes test in Perth.
Smith yesterday took a swipe at “comical” Monty Panesar after the former England spinner urged fans and players to target the stand-in Australia captain during the Ashes over his part in the 2018 “Sandpapergate” affair.
Smith was banned for a year and sacked as skipper after conspiring to alter the ball during the third test against South Africa in Cape Town.
Despite the fallout from the affair, he has since returned as stand-in skipper for the side.
The retired Panesar, who played 50 tests, said last week that Smith should be made to feel “guilty” about his part in the scandal.
In response, Smith pointed to Panesar’s gaffe-ridden 2019 appearance on a celebrity edition of the British quiz show Mastermind.
“I’m going to go off topic for a second here,” an apparently pre-prepared Smith told a press conference when asked about the criticism.
“Who of you in the room have seen Mastermind and Monty Panesar on that?
“Any of you? Well, those of you that have, you’ll understand where I’m coming from, and those of you haven’t, do yourself a favour because it’s pretty comical.
“Anyone that believes that Athens is in Germany, that’s a start, Oliver Twist is a season of the year and America is a city.
“Doesn’t really bother me, those comments,” he added. “That’s as far as I’ll go with that one.”
During his Mastermind appearance, Panesar did well on his specialist subject but failed miserably when it came to general knowledge.
Panesar responded to star batsman Smith’s jibes by telling the BBC: “We’ve both made mistakes. I made mine on a quiz show, he made his on a cricket field.”
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Panesar went on to question whether Smith could look himself in the eye after the sandpaper incident.
“I simply cannot believe that the Australian captain on the eve of the Ashes brought up my Celebrity Mastermind performance from 2019. Yes, I know I had an absolute shocker that day. I got six questions right on my specialist subject, Sikhism and its history, then got only one question correct in the general knowledge round. It was terrible, I know it was bad.
“However, at least I can hold my hands up and admit that. It’s bad knowledge, but at least it isn’t ball-tampering. I would actually ask Steve whether he can look himself in the mirror yet and admit that he was part of ’sandpapergate‘, the worst example of Australian cheating in history.”
He questioned the lack of leadership in the Australia squad that had led to Smith’s return to the captaincy role.
“What I do question is whether he should be Australia captain given what he has done? That for me raises serious questions about Australia’s leadership and a lack of it across the squad. If it was an England player who had been found guilty of blatant ball-tampering like Smith’s team were, I don’t think they would be captaining this team going into this series. I think that would be very tricky given how 2018 played out.”
The 36-year-old Smith is standing in as skipper in the absence of regular captain Pat Cummins, who is on his way back from injury.
– AFP