Australia aim ANOTHER swipe at England as Steve Smith reveals his ‘spirit of cricket’ dig at Ben Stokes after questionable review during hostile Ashes series
- Steve Smith and Australia have taken another swipe at England
- The players criticised England’s ‘spirit of cricket’ argument
- READ: It’s not the first time Australia have blasted their rivals
Australia have taken another dig at arch rivals England, almost two months on from the conclusion of their hostile Ashes series.
The five-match slugfest was filled with drama and animosity between the two teams from the moment Alex Carey controversially stumped Jonny Bairstow, inciting debate around ‘the spirit of the game’.
Australia, aggrieved with what they felt was poor treatment from England fans and the media, have spent the weeks following the series detailing the hilarious fallout of the Bairstow dismissal, leading Stokes to claim that the Aussies haven’t moved on from the series still.
And in an interview with ABC Sport, Steve Smith, Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labuschagne claimed Stokes was hypocritical in reviewing a dropped catch in the wake of the ‘spirit of cricket’ debate.
Stokes appeared to catch Smith out during the fifth Test, but dropped the ball as he prematurely celebrated. Despite this, the England captain still sent the incident to the third umpire for review.
Steve Smith and Australia have taken another swipe at their English rivals
Reflecting on the incident, Smith said: ‘When Stokesy tried to catch the ball and threw it onto the deck, looking at him and watching his body language, he knew that it was not out.
‘It was an interesting choice to go upstairs because I’m pretty sure he knew that it was, that he’d thrown the ball away.
‘I just said ‘here’s your spirit of cricket chance’.’
Travis Head, who was at the other end at the time, said: ‘Steve had some choice words at the time which is when you can see him pointing there saying, questioning whether that’s the grey area o the spirit of cricket again.
‘I actually found it all pretty funny.’
Smith highlighted England’s supposed hypocrisy over the spirit of cricket during the Ashes
But Ben Stokes has chosen to remain silent and won’t be drawn in by the Aussies
Usman Khawaja added: ‘Spirit of cricket, it’s a fickle line the spirit of cricket, that’s all I’ll say about that.’
Stokes has chosen to take the higher ground, however, telling the Telegraph last week of Australia’s post-Ashes antics: ‘I made a very conscious effort, once the Ashes was done, to let it be done.
‘I can’t quite say the same about the opposition.’
He added to The Guardian: ‘I just don’t get the angle to be honest. I don’t get why they’re talking about the Ashes like that. But to be honest, it’s not our problem,’ he said.
‘You can’t change what happened – the Manchester rain – but you also can’t say for certain we’d have won that game. But going 2-0 down and still being brave enough to play the way we did – that gave me immense satisfaction. It would have been easy to go in our shells but we took the bull by the horns and threw everything at them.’
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