Tim Paine reveals reality behind infamous Ashwin, Pant, battles in Australia-India Tests
Former Australian cricket captain Tim Paine has revealed the truth behind his running battles with two Indian stars, including his infamous “at least my teammates like me, d***head” sledge towards star spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.
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The two home Test series I played against India were both draining, for different reasons.
The first one in 2018-19 came only months after I’d been made captain and we played without Steve Smith and David Warner because of their suspensions.
The second two summers later was played with stifling Covid restrictions and against the backdrop of well-documented tension between senior players and our coach at the time.
We should have won the 2020-21 series, probably 3-1. But we let ourselves down in Sydney and Brisbane where I was well off my best.
While my wicketkeeping was sloppy in the closing stages of the SCG draw, the involvement for which I am perhaps best remembered - to my chagrin - is my exchange with India’s star spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on day five as they defied our attempts to clinch the match.
There was a bit going both ways but I clipped Ashwin by telling him that “at least my teammates like me, d***head.”
It wasn’t about to win a Nobel Prize for literature, but nor was it a hanging offence.
Ashwin didn’t play the final Test at the Gabba and I don’t think we’ve crossed paths since, although I do remember walking off the ground in Sydney congratulating him on how well he and Hanuma Vihari had done to stave off our efforts. There is nothing personal between us, at least not at my end, and I have huge respect for him as a cricketer.
I think what really triggered me that day was India’s timewasting tactics as they were trying to save the game. Calling for a chest guard between balls? It shouldn’t have been allowed and I think I let it get to me.
The Indians are good at that stuff: just pushing the laws of the game enough to get underneath the opposition’s skin but not too far that they run into serious trouble.
It probably speaks to a bit of a cultural change within Indian cricket.
When I first played India in a two-Test series away in 2010, they didn’t chirp at all much on the field, except for Harbhajan Singh. But by the time we played them again eight years later, so much had changed. It was clear that Virat Kohli was shaping a team in his image: fit, aggressive and unapologetic. From quite a poor fielding side they had become excellent in that regard.
That was the series in which I had a lot of byplay with India’s then up and coming wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant. I’d marvelled at how well he had played in England that year and was looking to distract him in order to mitigate against his influence, including famously joking that he could babysit my kids.
It didn’t really work, and he proved to be our undoing at the Gabba in 2021. I have huge admiration for Pant the cricketer, in fact if I was to start my career again I would model my game on his brash and fearless style.
Both the Pant and Ashwin lines were captured on stump mic, just as umpire Shawn Craig’s comments to India A players were during the recent A match in Mackay where I was working with the Australia A side.
It’s funny with the technology. You notice all the wires and cameras when you walk onto the ground but once the match begins you are so absorbed in the contest that you can easily forget what you are saying is being beamed live to millions of people. Usually it’s fine but every now and again you can run into trouble and that’s what lingers with the public.
One of the things that I thought really helped India in those two away series wins against us was the attitude of their coach Ravi Shastri. Boisterous and seemingly carefree, he emboldened his players not to be daunted despite circumstances conspiring against them and rebound from the adversity of being bowled out for 36 in Adelaide in the first Test of 2020-21.
I have serious reservations about new coach Gautam Gambhir and whether his temperament and approach suits this group of Indian players. Biting back against Ricky Ponting’s comments about Kohli betrayed a man too worried about things outside of his control and suggested that the former Indian opener is feeling the pressure after a 3-0 series defeat at home to New Zealand.
And let’s be honest, he probably is. If India stumbles early in this series, it doesn’t take too much imagination to think that the knives could soon be out for the coach. He needs to take a leaf out of the Shastri playbook, but I don’t know if he has it in him.
Originally published as Tim Paine reveals reality behind infamous Ashwin, Pant, battles in Australia-India Tests
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