Ashes hostilities start as British media targets Smith, Paine

British media has gone to city over the footage displaying Steve Smith shadow-batting throughout the partnership between Cheteshwar Pujara and Rishabh Pant, which at one level on the ultimate day of the Sydney Test raised slim hopes of an unlikely Indian victory.
Smith was seen pretending to bat left-handed and run his spikes over the crease the place Pant had marked his guard. The stump-camera later confirmed the Indian wicketkeeper-batsman asking for a recent guard from the umpire.
After the ball-tampering scandal of Cape Town 2018 and the “brain-fade” row over a attainable DRS name at Bangalore 2017, Smith is not any stranger to controversy. And with the Ashes scheduled for later this 12 months, the English are sparing no effort to focus on the largest purpose Australia retained the urn in 2019. It appears hostilities in Test cricket’s oldest rivalry have began already.
Many in England – starting from former skippers, coaches, present gamers and people in media – have argued that regardless of all of the speak of tradition evaluations, taking part in the sport in the precise method in addition to giving and incomes respect, the ‘win-at-all-cost’ mentality in Australian cricket got here to the floor in Sydney when push got here to shove.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan, one of many commentators for the Australia-India sequence, described the incident as “very, very poor”.

England all-rounder Chris Woakes, at present in Sri Lanka for a two-Test sequence, discovered time to dive into occasions happening 1000’s of miles away, although the primary Test of their sequence begins on Thursday. “There’s only one person who knows whether he was doing it to affect the opposition batsman or not and that’s Steve himself,” he was quoted as saying by BBC.
“Was it a deliberate attempt to alter the surface or just one of Smith’s idiosyncrasies?” BBC Sports’s Jack Skelton requested. Sky Sports commentator and former England batsman and head coach David Lloyd is claimed to have described Smith’s actions as infantile. Clearly, the English like nothing higher than to have a go on the Old Enemy, and the extra high-profile the higher.
Matthew Syed’s column in The Times had the headline – A brand new tradition? This is standard snide Australia. He wrote: “I hope nobody is surprised by the latest slippage of the Australian mask. As India battled valiantly to save the third Test in Sydney, Tim Paine, the Australia captain, swore towards an umpire, abused one opponent, Hanuma Vihari — who, despite a hamstring injury, soaked up 161 balls to help India to a draw — and called another, Ravichandran Ashwin, a “dickhead”.
Steve Smith, for his half, scuffed up the crease, hoping — it appeared — to push Rishabh Pant, who had developed a powerful rhythm, out of his stride. In case you’d forgotten, this was alleged to be Australia 2.0. A brand new model of the outdated crew.”
Syed doubts the tradition in Australian cricket ever modified, regardless of the 145-page report ensuing from the assessment commissioned by Cricket Australia after Newlands 2018, which he phrases a “cover-up”.
“The only thing the players learnt from that scandal is that the only crime is to get caught. If you can get away with it, you’re laughing all the way to the SCG… There is a distinct problem in the Australia team — dare I say it, a cultural problem. A win-at-all-costs mentality, a willingness to abuse opponents, a tendency even to mock their own players — such as the peerless Adam Gilchrist — when they seek to set a more enlightened example,” Syed writes.
Paine defends Smith
Skipper Tim Paine jumped to his predecessor’s defence, claiming there was nothing untoward or sinister about Smith’s actions on Monday.
“I have spoken to Steve about this. And I know he’s really disappointed with the way it’s come across,” Paine stated. “If you’ve watched Steve Smith play Test cricket, that’s something he does every single game, five or six times a day. He’s always standing in the batting crease, shadow-batting. We know he’s got those many Steve Smith quirks and one of them is he’s always marking centre.”
Paine argued that the explanation for shadow-batting left-handed was to determine the place off-spinner Nathan Lyon ought to intention for whereas bowling to left-hander Pant. He stated that if Smith had any intention to take pleasure in sharp apply, the Indian batsmen within the center would have complained.
“He was certainly not changing guard and I’d imagine if he was, then the Indian players would have kicked up a bit of a stink at the time. When he’s in the field, he likes to walk up to where he bats and visualises how he’s going to play. Yesterday you could see him up there, playing a couple of shots as a left-hander – as if [working out] where he wanted Lyno to pitch the ball. He wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, trying to change guard or do anything like that.”