{"id":699436,"date":"2026-05-28T06:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T06:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/699436\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T06:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T06:08:09","slug":"cricket-2026-monty-panesar-wants-to-apologise-to-steve-smith-for-pre-ashes-war-of-words-video-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/699436\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket 2026: Monty Panesar wants to apologise to Steve Smith for pre-Ashes war of words, video, news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former England spinner Monty Panesar has confessed he wants to apologise to Steve Smith next time he sees the Australian batter following their war of words ahead of the recent Ashes series.<\/p>\n

On the eve of the first Test in Perth, Australian stand-in captain Smith was asked about Panesar\u2019s comments<\/a> in the lead-up to the series, where he implored the England team to target him over his involvement in the 2018 Sandpapergate scandal.<\/p>\n

Smith responded by mocking Panesar\u2019s embarrassing appearance on UK quiz show Mastermind in 2019, but the Englishman hit back shortly after, penning a newspaper column where he called Smith a \u201ccheat\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Watch every match of the 2026 IPL Season EXCLUSIVELY LIVE on Fox Cricket, available on Kayo | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1 ><\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking on the Stick to Cricket<\/a> podcast this week, Panesar admitted he still felt \u201ca bit guilty\u201d about the ordeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know why I went so hard at him in Australia, but it\u2019s just a build-up of the Ashes, so you get sucked into the hype,\u201d Panesar said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow looking back at when we did that segment, I think if I see him, I\u2019ll say, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, I didn\u2019t mean to say that kind of stuff.\u2018 I don\u2019t think he wants to see me. I haven\u2019t got his number.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Panesar also claimed that he believed Smith was distracted by the incident during the Ashes opener at Perth Stadium, which Australia won by eight wickets. The New South Welshman scored 17 and 2 not out in a low-scoring contest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first innings, he played and missed 50 per cent of the time,\u201d Panesar recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the situation did affect him going into the game. Normally in Australia, his play and misses are only 10 per cent. But you\u2019re right, after that, it was all dead and buried.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australia ultimately won the series 4-1, retaining the Ashes urn for a fifth-consecutive series.<\/p>\n

Monty Panesar dismisses Steve Smith during the 2013\/14 Ashes.Source: News Limited<\/p>\n

Later, Panesar reflected on comments from the late Shane Warne where he once criticised the England tweaker\u2019s inability to learn from experience and develop his variations.<\/p>\n

\u201cPanesar hasn\u2019t played 33 Tests, he\u2019s played one Test 33 times,\u201d Warne said in 2008. Panesar, who at the time had taken 114 Test wickets at 31.95, was dropped shortly after.<\/p>\n

The 44-year-old confessed the Australian legend\u2019s remarks, which followed Panesar for the remainder of his professional career, did affect him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe British media saw Shane Warne as the Messiah of cricket, really. Whatever he said was gospel and then they kind of exploded it in the media,\u201d Panesar recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I\u2019d taken him out for pizza or something and just sat down one-to-one, away from the game. He could have said to me, \u2018Look, Monty, you\u2019re just bowling the same way, you\u2019re not really thinking how to get batsmen out. Maybe try to do different things, look at your techniques, or go and chat to your captain, have a bit of a time-out, change the field.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt probably did affect me at the time because everyone was just talking about variation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former England spinner Monty Panesar has confessed he wants to apologise to Steve Smith next time he sees…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-699436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}