England’s Barmy Army recently tried to get inside Australia’s Test captain Tim Paine’s head with a statistical jibe on Twitter ahead of the much-talking Ashes 2021-22 series later this year.
On October 6, England's famous cricket fan group, the Barmy Army, decided to tease Paine over his Test runs ahead of the Ashes series in Australia and even they succeed in getting the better of the Aussie skipper.
Earlier this week, the Barmy Army shared a statistical post on Twitter comparing Joe Root and Paine's relative batting performances. The post stated that the numbers of runs England skipper Root has scored in the year 2021 are just 80 runs behind Paine's entire Test career runs.
The Barmy Army tweeted: “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.”
Noteworthy, Paine has so far scored a total of 1534 runs in Test cricket in 35 matches at an average of 32, while Root has amassed 1455 alone in the year 2021, and he needs another 80 to surpass Paine's runs in his Test career till the date. Root has 9278 runs to his name in 109 Test matches so far.
Reacting to the Barmy Army’s jibe, Paine said that he found the comparison between him and Root laughable and came up with a gem of a line to respond to the English fans group.
Paine said on SEN Hobart: “I'd like to say 'apples and oranges' but it's not even that. The Barmy Army watches a lot of cricket, you would think they would understand the game a little bit better than that. I've got 1534 more runs than the Barmy Army.”
The wicketkeeper batter further asked, “Joe Root - if he wasn't scoring more runs than me they'd have a serious issue, wouldn't they? They rely on him to win games of cricket with the bat; I'm a small piece in our jigsaw. The Barmy Army enjoys poking fun at me, but that's fine.”
The Australian skipper said it was disappointed that the travel restrictions are likely to prevent the Barmy Army to come up in huge numbers this summer, in the last 20 years, for the Ashes series, starting with the first Test in Brisbane on December 8.
Paine signed off by saying, “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. 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. But they're excellent, brilliant to have at a cricket ground.”
Well, the Barmy Army didn’t stop after Paine’s response, as they yet again tried to take a dig at his legendary response by saying their mission was complete.
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