\n<\/p>\n
Australia captain Steve Smith has confirmed his team for Friday\u2019s opening Ashes Test \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
Smith insisted the comments \u201cdidn\u2019t really bother me\u201d, but only having apparently demonstrated the opposite \u2013 by raking over Panesar\u2019s notoriously miserable appearance on the TV quiz Mastermind in 2019.<\/p>\n
In an interview with an online betting company Panesar had urged England\u2019s players to: \u201cSay something like, \u2018I don\u2019t think it\u2019s ethical that he\u2019s the captain. I don\u2019t think he played the game fairly.\u2019 Really get into him and make him feel guilty about it. Make him feel like, \u2018They\u2019re probably right, I shouldn\u2019t be here, I shouldn\u2019t be doing this.\u2019 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, \u2018the cheaters have arrived.\u2019 Right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether he had come across these comments, Smith launched into an apparently prepared answer. \u201cI\u2019m going to go off topic here \u2026 Who of you in the room has seen Mastermind, and Monty Panesar on that? Any of you?\u201d he asked a crowded press conference room.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose of you that have will understand where I\u2019m coming from. And those of you who haven\u2019t, do yourself a favour because it is pretty comical. Anyone that believes that Athens is in Germany \u2026 that\u2019s a start. [That] Oliver Twist is a season of the year, and America is a city, it doesn\u2019t really bother me those comments. That\u2019s as far as I\u2019ll go with that one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next question to Smith was about how he had changed as a captain since he first took the role in 2014. \u201cYeah,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m pretty chilled. I\u2019m a lot more relaxed these days.\u201d<\/p>\n
His reaction to Panesar\u2019s comments also appeared to contradict his preferred approach to pre-Ashes hype. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty standard,\u201d he said, later in the press conference. \u201cI\u2019ve been involved in a few now and there\u2019s always so many words said before the series. For us, I think it\u2019s about just ignoring the outside and concentrating on our processes, what we do well as a team, and trusting and backing that throughout.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>Captains Steve Smith and Ben Stokes at Perth Stadium.<\/span> Photograph: Saeed Khan\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Smith revealed his starting XI, which sees both Jake Weatherald and Brendan Doggett make their Test debuts in the absence of Pat Cummins \u2013 who has looked good in the nets this week \u2013 and Josh Hazlewood \u2013 whose chances of playing the second Test in Brisbane Smith admitted he had \u201cno idea\u201d 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he\u2019s batting at his best at No 3, it makes us a very, very good cricket side,\u201d Smith said of Labuschagne. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t really leave him out after he came back and did exactly what was told of him. The way he\u2019s batted for Queensland has been amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers’ thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n 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: \u201cWe\u2019ll see in the morning \u2013 or hopefully two mornings.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n 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. \u201cEveryone, including myself, including all the team, knows that the record of England over the history of Ashes series in Australia isn\u2019t the best,\u201d Ben Stokes said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve got the opportunity here over the next two and a half months to write our own history. Wr\u2019ve come here with a goal, and that goal is to get on that plane in mid-January, returning to England being Ashes winners.\u201d<\/p>\n Australia XI<\/strong>: Jake Weatherald, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith (c), Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wk), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Scott Boland, Brendan Doggett.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australia captain Steve Smith has confirmed his team for Friday\u2019s opening Ashes Test \u2013 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[16527,346,8180,5412,7940,19618,19619,2325,4393,1905],"class_list":{"0":"post-34533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ashes","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-confirm","11":"tag-fires","12":"tag-opener","13":"tag-sandpaper","14":"tag-sledge","15":"tag-smith","16":"tag-steve","17":"tag-team"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}