Follow UsAshes has truly begun, off the field.
Just before the first Test at Perth, former England spinner Monty Panesar fired shots at Steve Smith, stating that the English side should sledge the Australian using the Sandpaper gate incident. It didn’t go down too well with Smith, who hit out at Panesar’s general knowledge, citing his appearance on the BBC’s Celebrity Mastermind.
"I'm going to go off topic for a second here," began Smith. "Who in the room has seen Mastermind and Monty Panesar on that? Any of you? "Yeah. Well those of you that have, you'll understand where I'm coming from, and those of you haven't, do yourself a favour, because it's pretty comical.
"Anyone who believes that Athens is in Germany, that's a start, or Oliver Twist is a season of the year and America is a city, doesn't really bother me those comments. Yeah, that's as far as I'll go with that one."
Panesar hasn’t responded well to those comments, with the left-arm spinner stating that he can ‘rattle Australians’ sitting on his sofa miles away from the pitch in Perth.
"We've both made mistakes. I made mine on a quiz show, he made his on a cricket field," Panesar told BBC Radio 5Live, reported Cricbuzz.
"The night before the Test match he's watching my Mastermind clips, memorising the questions and the answers and it kind of feels like England are already in his head and I can rattle the Aussies from sitting on my sofa.
"It's opened up now for the England boys to really go hard at him, play a few mind games with him. It could be that difference where he gets out early and suddenly they're saying "thanks Monty".
In 2018, Smith was banned for a year after the trio of Cameron Bancroft, David Warner and Smith was found involved in the Sandpaper gate, which shocked Australian cricket. Panesar reckoned that the Sandpaper gate was still a ‘sensitive subject’ for the stand-in skipper.
"I know I'm guilty of bad general knowledge, not ball tampering. It's obviously still a sensitive subject for him and I think no one thought he would respond in this way. I suppose he's clearly trying to deviate from the subject, but still quite a sensitive one for him."