Australia captain takes bizarre ‘mastermind’ swipe at former England cricket star

The first Ashes test begins on Friday morning

It comes after Monty Panesar, who played in 50 tests between 2006 and 2013, encouraged England's current squad to make Smith feel guilty for his involvement in the "Sandpapergate" scandal.

Back in 2018, star batsman Smith was stripped of the Australian captaincy as a result of his involvement in 'ball-tampering.'

Ball tampering is the strictly banned act of a fielder altering the condition of the cricket ball to gain an unfair advantage over opposing batsmen.

In response to Panesar's comments, Smith referred to the former professional spinner's 2019 appearance on the BBC quiz show Mastermind, in which he famously only managed one correct answer in the general knowledge round.

Panesar did manage to answer six questions correctly on Sikhism and its history during the specialist subject round.

During Thursday's press conference Smith said: "I'm going to go off topic here. Who of you in the room has seen Mastermind, and Monty Panesar on that? Any of you?

"Those of you that have will understand where I'm coming from. If you haven't, do yourself a favour because it is pretty comical.

"Anyone who believes that Athens is in Germany, Oliver Twist is a season of the year, and America is a city, it doesn't really bother me those comments. That's as far as I'll go with that one."

Smith will lead Australia in Friday's opening test with captain Pat Cummins still out injured.