Australia captain Steve Smith has confirmed his team for Friday’s opening Ashes Test – but the announcement was overshadowed by an extraordinary verbal attack on Monty Panesar after the former England spinner suggested Ben Stokes and his touring team should try to upset him by rehashing the infamous sandpaper ball tampering controversy of 2018.
Smith insisted the comments “didn’t really bother me”, but only having apparently demonstrated the opposite – by raking over Panesar’s notoriously miserable appearance on the TV quiz Mastermind in 2019.
In an interview with an online betting company Panesar had urged England’s players to: “Say something like, ‘I don’t think it’s ethical that he’s the captain. I don’t think he played the game fairly.’ Really get into him and make him feel guilty about it. Make him feel like, ‘They’re probably right, I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t be doing this.’ This is where the UK media must also focus and put pressure. Use it as a way to help England. If it were the opposite, the Australian media would be all over it. They would have said, if it was any of the English players, ‘the cheaters have arrived.’ Right?”
Asked whether he had come across these comments, Smith launched into an apparently prepared answer. “I’m going to go off topic here … Who of you in the room has seen Mastermind, and Monty Panesar on that? Any of you?” he asked a crowded press conference room.
“Those of you that have will understand where I’m coming from. And those of you who haven’t, do yourself a favour because it is pretty comical. Anyone that believes that Athens is in Germany … that’s a start. [That] Oliver Twist is a season of the year, and America is a city, it doesn’t really bother me those comments. That’s as far as I’ll go with that one.”
The next question to Smith was about how he had changed as a captain since he first took the role in 2014. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m pretty chilled. I’m a lot more relaxed these days.”
His reaction to Panesar’s comments also appeared to contradict his preferred approach to pre-Ashes hype. “It’s pretty standard,” he said, later in the press conference. “I’ve been involved in a few now and there’s always so many words said before the series. For us, I think it’s about just ignoring the outside and concentrating on our processes, what we do well as a team, and trusting and backing that throughout.”
Captains Steve Smith and Ben Stokes at Perth Stadium. Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images
Smith revealed his starting XI, which sees both Jake Weatherald and Brendan Doggett make their Test debuts in the absence of Pat Cummins – who has looked good in the nets this week – and Josh Hazlewood – whose chances of playing the second Test in Brisbane Smith admitted he had “no idea” about. Cameron Green drops down to his familiar No 6 role while Marnus Labuschagne is rewarded for his stunning domestic form and returns at No 3, with Beau Webster dropped.
“When he’s batting at his best at No 3, it makes us a very, very good cricket side,” Smith said of Labuschagne. “We couldn’t really leave him out after he came back and did exactly what was told of him. The way he’s batted for Queensland has been amazing.”
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The 36-year-old also indicated his likely decision should he win the toss. Asked whether he had decided which bowler will share the new ball with Mitchell Starc Smith strongly hinted that he would prefer to bat first, saying: “We’ll see in the morning – or hopefully two mornings.” His preference for batting first comes as little surprise: that has been his choice in 17 of the 19 Tests where he has won a toss as captain, including the last 12 in succession.
England are likely to confirm their starting XI after they finish their final training session on Thursday afternoon, having named a trimmed-down 12-man squad on Wednesday. “Everyone, including myself, including all the team, knows that the record of England over the history of Ashes series in Australia isn’t the best,” Ben Stokes said. “But we’ve got the opportunity here over the next two and a half months to write our own history. Wr’ve come here with a goal, and that goal is to get on that plane in mid-January, returning to England being Ashes winners.”
Australia XI: Jake Weatherald, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith (c), Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wk), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Scott Boland, Brendan Doggett.
