Former Australia Test captain Tim Paine has slammed the England Test captain Ben Stokes for his comments from the Ashes 2023 documentary. Paine said to the England team that they are a ‘below-average’ Test side and that they need to get their ‘head around that’ as well. In the documentary released by the ECB, Ben Stokes was spotted saying that his Test side will forever live in the memory of people who have been lucky enough to witness them play as well.

And, Tim Paine found Ben Stokes’s comment to be bizarre and out of the place as the series ended 2-2 and Australia managed to retain the Ashes as well. The England team under the leadership of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum are currently placed at the ninth position in the World Test Championship cycle and they had failed to qualify for the final in the last edition of WTC as well.

“I think it was taken slightly out of context because he was talking in a changing room and it was a bigger speech, so I will say that,” Paine told on SEN Tassie Breakfast. “However, it’s just this continued belief that they’re completely changing the game and they’re doing this amazing stuff and everyone’s going to remember it they’re not.”

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“You’re coming dead last in the World Test Championship. You’re not going to be a team that everyone remembers watching and you’re not doing anything outrageously good that we haven’t seen before. You’re an average cricket team. (Actually) you’re at the moment, a below-average cricket team and I think they need to get their head around that a little bit,” Paine added again.

However, the ECB had shared a clip of Stokes’ speech in the dressing room on the eve of the 5th Test match at Old Trafford, Manchester as well.

“Everything we’ve done up until now isn’t going to stop because we haven’t managed to win the urn back,” Stokes told. “The reward for our work isn’t what we get, but what we become. And what we have managed to do is, we’ve managed to become a sports team that will live forever in the memory of people who were lucky enough to witness us play cricket. Said this to the team who had watched it rain for 2 days when we had our foot on your throats, just tried to cheer up the disappointment, but anyway, rent-free and all that.”