{"id":140741,"date":"2021-10-08T03:50:03","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T03:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=140741"},"modified":"2021-10-08T04:57:27","modified_gmt":"2021-10-08T04:57:27","slug":"irrelevant-paine-shreds-barmy-army-sledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=140741","title":{"rendered":"'Irrelevant' Paine shreds Barmy Army sledge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian Test captain Tim Paine<\/a> says he "absolutely loved" the social media banter this week in the wake of his recent comments about this summer's Ashes series.<\/p>\n

Paine has made headlines on both sides of the world<\/a>, after his remarks last week that the series would begin with or without England captain Joe Root, who until recently had refused to commit to travelling to Australia.<\/p>\n

Paine was branded "irrelevant" by former England batter Rob Key, whose own mediocre career lasted just 15 matches, during which he averaged only 31.<\/p>\n

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"Who was that?" Paine asked on SEN Hobart, before answering his own question.<\/p>\n

"That was Rob Key. Speaking of irrelevant.<\/p>\n

"You know it's busy when you constantly refresh how many times you've been mentioned (on social media).<\/p>\n

"You can't just flick through. I have been belted, every day, 24 hours a day, and I have absolutely loved it."<\/p>\n

The Barmy Army entered the fray during the week, when they tweeted a stat comparing Root and Paine's relative batting performances.<\/p>\n

\"Barmy<\/p>\n

"If Joe Root scores 80 more runs than Tim Paine in the first 2 Ashes Tests, his 2021 Test runs will be higher than Paine's career Test runs," they wrote.<\/p>\n

Paine has made 1534 Test runs, while Root has made 1455 runs this year alone.<\/p>\n

It's a comparison that Paine found laughable.<\/p>\n

"I'd like to say 'apples and oranges' but it's not even that," Paine said.<\/p>\n

"The Barmy Army watch a lot of cricket, you would think they would understand the game a little bit better than that.<\/p>\n

"I've got 1534 more runs than the Barmy Army"<\/p>\n

Root, of course, bats at number four for England, while Paine's first role is as the team's wicketkeeper.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheBarmyArmy\/status\/1445806559519457282?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

"Joe Root – if he wasn't scoring more runs than me they'd have a serious issue, wouldn't they?" Paine asked.<\/p>\n

"They rely on him to win games of cricket with the bat, I'm a small piece in our jigsaw.<\/p>\n

"The Barmy Army enjoy poking fun at me, but that's fine."<\/p>\n

Travel restrictions are likely to prevent the Barmy Army supporting England in their usual numbers this summer, a fact that the Australian captain said was disappointing.<\/p>\n

"It's actually a bit sad to be honest, because it does really add to the atmosphere, and they are excellent at what they do," he said.<\/p>\n

"Granted, they do re-use a lot of chants from the English Premier League, I don't think they've come up with too much original in the last 20 years.<\/p>\n

"But they're excellent, brilliant to have at a cricket ground."<\/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<\/em><\/strong> clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian Test captain Tim Paine says he "absolutely loved" the social media banter this week in the wake of his recent comments about this summer's […]<\/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\/140741"}],"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=140741"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140743,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140741\/revisions\/140743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}