Anderson fires up war of words with Smith
England cricket spearhead Jimmy Anderson has resumed his slanging match with Steve Smith, saying Australia’s skipper was more interested in sledging than talking with his batting partner at Adelaide Oval.
Anderson and Smith have been swapping barbs throughout the Ashes series, which resumes with the third test in Perth today.
England’s all-time leading wickettaker claimed Australia were bullies before the second test, a word that shocked Smith given Anderson is “one of the biggest sledgers in the game . . . to me in particular”. The pair were involved in heated moments during the day-night test in Adelaide, where Smith scored 40 and six.
Smith claimed Anderson’s verbals only served to sharpen his focus but Anderson rebuffed that claim in his newspaper column. “We tried to get in Steve Smith’s bubble . . . we knew we were on top,” Anderson wrote in the UK Telegraph, recalling his stoush with Smith during Australia’s first innings at Adelaide Oval.
“We knew he was focusing on us because between overs he was supposed to go and talk to Usman Khawaja. He [Khawaja] was waiting for the chat from his captain but Smith ignored him and went back to his own end because he wanted to speak to us instead.
“I sensed he was more bothered about what Stuart [Broad] and I were saying to him, which was not very interesting.”
Anderson added that Smith “bats out of the box so you have to think out of the box”.
“Once you get him out a couple of times you realise he is not superhuman. You realise ‘I can bowl to this guy’ and that makes a big difference,” he wrote.
Accustomed to copping plenty of verbals from Australia during the Ashes, Anderson realises last weekend’s headlines — Anderson had a drink poured on his head by England A batsman Ben Duckett — have given them even more fodder.
That occurred the first night England’s management temporarily relaxed a midnight curfew, and at the same bar where Jonny Bairstow headbutted Cameron Bancroft during England’s first night on tour. “I know Australia will use the Duckett incident as a way of goading us, or taking the mickey. It will probably be funnier than what they have spouted at me so far in this series.”
The two incidents have left England captain Joe Root admitting he was not prepared for the full extent of off-field challenges that come with leading England on an Ashes tour.
Root, on his first overseas trip as England’s test captain, has been peppered with more questions about the team’s conduct and curfew than their cricket.
The tone was set by Ben Stokes’ involvement in fight outside a Bristol bar in September in which another man suffered a fractured eye socket. The alcohol-fuelled antics of Bairstow and Duckett have entrenched a reputation that England have a booze problem.
“I knew it would be challenging, and I knew there would be stuff around the cricket — but not to this extent,” Root said. “I’m fed up of talking about stuff that’s not cricket. I don’t know how I’ve still got all my hair. I can completely see how captaincy can take its toll.”
His team trail 2-0 in the series. Only one team in Ashes history has fought back from such a position and won the series: Don Bradman’s Australia in 1936/37 on home soil.