Steve Smith Launches Bizarre Attack on Monty Panesar, Mocking Quiz Show Appearance
Australian cricketer Steve Smith launched a highly unexpected and bizarre personal attack on former England spinner Monty Panesar during a pre-match press conference ahead of the first Ashes Test in Perth. Instead of addressing Panesar’s comments urging England to target him over the 2018 Sandpapergate scandal, Smith attempted to discredit the retired player by mocking his infamous, gaffe-ridden 2019 appearance on the UK quiz show Celebrity Mastermind.
On the eve of the highly anticipated first Test of the Ashes 2025 series, Australian stand-in captain Steve Smith delivered a surprising and prepared verbal counterattack against former England spinner Monty Panesar. Panesar had recently urged England’s players, fans, and media to barrack Smith and use psychological pressure over his role in the 2018 ‘Sandpapergate’ ball-tampering scandal, suggesting Smith should be made to feel “guilty” about stepping in to captain the side for the injured Pat Cummins.
Instead of directly engaging with the ball-tampering comments, Smith took a curious detour at his press conference, choosing to publicly ridicule Panesar’s general knowledge credibility by referencing his performance on the BBC quiz show Celebrity Mastermind in 2019. Smith addressed the reporters, asking: “Who in the room has seen Mastermind, and Monty Panesar on that? Any of you? Those of you that have will understand where I’m coming from. If you haven’t, do yourself a favour because it is pretty comical.” Smith then went on to highlight Panesar’s most notorious blunders from the show to dismiss the spinner’s opinions: “Anyone that believes that Athens is in Germany, that’s a start, or that Oliver Twist is a season of the year and America is a city. It doesn’t really bother me, those comments. That’s as far as I’ll go with that one.”
Smith’s unexpected diatribe, which drew laughs from the media room, was widely interpreted as an attempt to diminish the legitimacy of Panesar’s criticism by highlighting the retired player’s past public embarrassment. Panesar, who last played Test cricket in 2013, had argued that England needed to use every psychological weapon available to unsettle one of Australia’s most crucial batsmen. However, Smith’s sharp and focused rebuttal suggests Panesar may have succeeded in getting under the skin of the former captain, ensuring that the Sandpapergate controversy remains a central talking point on the eve of the high-stakes Ashes opener.
