Why prickly Steve Smith’s pathetic attack on Monty Panesar reveals he’s still haunted by Sandpapergate – and the more sinister hidden element of it that quickly backfired

The question was odd, the answer even odder. But what seemed clear from Steve Smith’s mockery of the former England spinner Monty Panesar on the eve of the most keenly awaited Ashes for years was that the wounds of Sandpapergate have not fully healed. Not yet, anyway.

It is more than seven years since Smith presided over Australia’s cunning plan to rub sandpaper on the ball during a Test match in Cape Town – a ruse that cost him the captaincy, led to bans for him, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, and provided the Barmy Army with material to last a lifetime.

Now, with the pre-series focus about to turn, finally, from the phoney war to the actual cricket, Smith – stand-in captain while Pat Cummins nurses a back injury – was asked what he made of Panesar’s recent comments on a betting website.

The question, posed by an Australian journalist, would have been strange enough even if it had been vaguely relevant to the cricket to come. Yet Panesar’s suggestion that England should make Smith ‘feel guilty’ for his role in the scandal had barely raised an eyebrow when it was made a week ago. It was old news about an old topic, easily forgotten and best ignored.

What made it stranger still, and suggested some kind of forward planning, was the willingness with which Smith launched into Panesar’s hapless appearance on BBC TV’s Mastermind in 2019, when he scored one point in the general knowledge round and had viewers watching from behind the sofa as his answers to presenter John Humphrys grew more scattergun.

‘I’m going go off topic for a second here,’ said 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.’

It was the level of detail that was the giveaway. Smith must have known the question was coming, and had clearly watched the video of Panesar’s humiliation, still easy to find online. And that in turn hinted at collusion with the journalist. 

Was Smith concerned the sandpaper fiasco would be raised in more hostile fashion by a member of the travelling press, and decided to make a joke of it instead? It was hard to say.

All he succeeded in doing, aside from provoking stifled and surprised laughter from the assembled media, was to draw attention to one of his darkest days, less than 24 hours before he was due to toss the coin with Ben Stokes for the first Test which began at 2.30am GMT this morning.

And the manner in which his ridiculing of Panesar played the man, not the ball, told of an enduring prickliness about an episode that threatened to define him, before he returned from exile to score magnificent twin hundreds in his comeback Test at Edgbaston. 

Since that game six years ago, Smith has averaged nearly 50, with 13 centuries, confirming his status an all-time great. But he was ill-advised to react to Panesar’s goading by goading Panesar in return.

Panesar himself has been open about his Mastermind meltdown, using the pages of Daily Mail Sport soon after the broadcast to express his mortification: ‘Car crash doesn’t do it justice. It was like the Titanic ramming the Hindenburg. In the moments afterwards I was angry, because it was so embarrassing.’

He has also spoken candidly about the mental-health struggles which blighted his 50-Test career and the years since he last played at the highest level, on the Ashes tour of 2013-14. Troubled by paranoid thoughts, he took medication.

The game has since looked after him, and he has thrown himself at every opportunity into life as a pundit – most recently urging England’s players and press to make Smith’s life difficult.

‘If it were the opposite, the Australian media would be all over it,’ he said. ‘They would have said, if it was any of the English players, “the cheaters have arrived”. Right?’

Now that Panesar is making a living from his views, he must be prepared to get as good as he gives. It is understood he took Smith’s retaliation in good spirits, which suggests he has got his head round the delicate etiquette of tit-for-tat spats that play out in the media.

As for Smith, his attempt at humour served little purpose other than to give England’s travelling fans – thought to number around 9,000 in a Perth Stadium that seats 60,000 – something to get their teeth stuck into.

On a day when Australia should have been celebrating the news that opening batsman Jake Weatherald and seamer Brendan Doggett would each win a first cap, Smith had taken minds back to a time and place everyone regarded as ancient history.