Silly incidents are made out to be massive scandals...IT

MUST BE AN ASHES YEAR!

YOU can tell the Ashes is on its way at the end of this year.

I had to laugh this week at the reaction to incidents involving Australia captain Tim Paine, and former skipper Steve Smith, in the series against India.

Let’s start with Smith. While fielding, he was caught on camera using his spikes to scratch the batsman’s guard marks. He was accused of purposely rubbing out the batsman’s guard.

Smith (below) has previously been disgraced while captain during the Australians’ ball-tampering scandal in South Africa, but come on, the reaction was ridiculous. If he was purposely doing that, then it was petty but pretty meaningless, as the batsman could just take guard again.

And aren’t there much worse things going on during a cricket match?

Don’t batsmen pretend that they haven’t hit the ball when they actually have, in order to avoid being given out, which in itself is a much more blatant way to cheat?

I couldn’t get my head around the ferocity of the reaction to this. Someone also reminded me that England have been accused in the past of dropping sweets on the wicket in a series versus India to annoy the batsman. Stones and glasshouses anyone?

Meanwhile, Paine was caught on the stump mic sledging Ravi Ashwin (both top) or, more precisely, telling him that his team-mates didn’t like him. My goodness, it was like he had said we didn’t deserve to win the World Cup in 1966.

Firstly, it was a pathetic sledge. If the, ‘Yeah, but no one likes you, mate’ line is the worst that it gets then I don’t think we have anything to worry about. Secondly, hasn’t much worse been said in recent history by both English and Australian players?

I wish the captain of a national team didn’t have to lower his behaviour to sledging, especially with something as silly as that. But to hold him up as some sort of disgraced pariah is way over the top.

At first, I wondered if this was all because we have been so starved of sport recently that the first bit of controversy was going to be seized upon. But then I remembered the Ashes was at the end of the year.

With the Australian team starting to look strong and England with much to prove, the hype has already begun.

I don’t think this was an intentional call-to-action, but the focus of both the British and Australian media on each other’s teams will ramp up as we get closer to the Ashes at the end of the year.

Every controversy, injury or change in form will be forensically analysed by both sides and likely to be blown out of proportion at the time.

That is what comes with the most highly-anticipated series in Test cricket.