Tim Paine and former England great Kevin Pietersen have continued to debate the travel conditions surrounding the 2021-22 Ashes, with the Australian skipper positioning himself as public enemy number one to the visitors.<\/p>\n
The discourse surrounding the series has reached fever pitch overnight, when Paine's comments regarding both Pietersen and skipper Joe Root found their way to the English press.<\/p>\n
Paine said on Friday that the Ashes would be going ahead "whether Joe's here or not", among other comments, including a sarcastic jab at Pietersen<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pietersen had initially said England were "done" with travel bubbles<\/a> in a now-deleted tweet, and after Paine addressed those concerns yesterday, the two exchanged relatively civil notes online.<\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong> Cricket star labelled 'a disgrace' hits back<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong> Historic cricket Test 'postponed indefinitely'<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n "To be fair to Tim Paine, it is up to the players to make the decisions on The Ashes tour, not ex has-beens!" Pietersen wrote.<\/p>\n "Hopefully there'll be a positive outcome over the weekend. The Ashes is the greatest rivalry & battle in Test match cricket – and we need Test Match cricket to survive!"<\/p>\n https:\/\/twitter.com\/tdpaine36\/status\/1444029709474426881<\/a><\/p>\n Paine replied, acknowledging the difficult conditions that awaited the touring England team.<\/p>\n While the pair seem to have parted ways amicably, England's Barmy Army derisively referred to Paine as "Mr Sympathetic" as journalists accused him of "mouthing off", having an "average attitude" or resorting to name-calling.<\/p>\n https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheBarmyArmy\/status\/1443880010494906377<\/a><\/p>\n It was also widely pointed out that Australia had not travelled overseas for Test cricket at all since the COVID-19 pandemic began.<\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong> Healy rips authorities over Shield fixture 'debacle'<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong> Ashes in chaos as England skipper refuses to commit<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Paine was originally responding to comments from Joe Root, who said he was "desperate" to be a part of the series, but that he and the rest of the team would seek clarity on the travel and quarantine situations should they head down under.<\/p>\n "It's one of those things, we just have to be patient, we have to wait until we know what's happening," Root said.<\/p>\n The first Test is set to begin on December 8th.<\/p>\n For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tim Paine and former England great Kevin Pietersen have continued to debate the travel conditions surrounding the 2021-22 Ashes, with the Australian skipper positioning himself […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137773"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137775,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137773\/revisions\/137775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}