Former England skipper Michael Vaughan lashed out at Australian Tim Paine for his comments on Joe Root traveling to Australia for the Ashes. Vaughan heavily slammed Tim Paine for not showing empathy with the England cricketers and not understanding the situation that the touring party.
Well, the future of the Ashes has been uncertain for a long time while with Australia putting up strict restrictions following a rise in the number of COVID-19. It has been widely reported that many England cricketers have had big concerns over traveling and many of them wanted to boycott the tour.
Tim Paine was irked with the same and had said that the Ashes will go ahead irrespective of England skipper Joe Root and other star players of the England cricket availability for the much-awaited series. He had said:
“The Ashes are going ahead. The first Test is on December 8th, whether Joe is here or not.”
“They’ll have a choice to make, you either get on that plane or don’t. No one is forcing you to come. If you don’t want to come, don’t come. There will be a squad of England players coming here,” Paine told Sen Sports Radio
Tim drew a lot of criticism from his comments on the England team and was also slammed by the Barmy Army.
Former England skipper Michael Vaughan has also joined the bandwagon and has said Paine lacked ‘class’ in his statements while insisting that the Australian captain hasn’t had to go through the situation whatever Root and other England players are going through. Paine had said:
“As a Test match captain, you have to show a bit of empathy. In the last two years, he hasn’t taken his team overseas. He hasn’t had to go through what these England players have gone through. He hasn’t gone through what Joe Root has gone through. He plays only one format of the game. I do believe he showed a bit of lack of class.”
Vaughan added, “I don’t think that went down well with the players. There is a huge amount of respect between the two sides. And particularly, anyone that’s captain of an international side, I personally think he didn’t need to say what he said.”
Meanwhile, the English Cricket Board gave ‘conditional approval’ for the tour to go ahead. However, it still remains to be seen who all are ready to travel, and England field a full-strength side later this year.
