'It’s Ridiculous'- Mitchell Johnson On Calls For Tim Paine To Resign As Australia's Captain

Mitchell Johnson states that it is ridiculous for Tim Paine to resign as Australia’s captain after India won the Border Gavaskar Trophy 2-1 without their experienced players. Mitchell Johnson has backed Tim Paine to continue as Australia‘s skipper in spite of the home series defeat against India. It was a remarkable comeback from the Indian inexperienced cricket team after the first test loss at Adelaide.

“It’s ridiculous. The comments that come out about that stuff are just nit-picking, and we’re seeing a lot of that these days,” Mitchell Johnson said while appearing on The Fast and the Curious Podcast. Tim Paine who took over the captaincy from Steve Smith after the Ball-Tampering Scandal in 2018 has won 11 tests and lost 8 tests. He managed to retain the Ashes in 2019 but the home series defeat has made a lot of talk going around his captaincy.

Mitchell Johnson On The Sydney Test Criticism

Mitchell Johnson had a different view on the criticism faced by Tim Paine stating that more and more criticism might end up in players denying the media access. The cricket experts around the world including Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist were very critical of the Australian skipper sledging in the field against the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin in the Sydney test.

“It’s a sport and there’s competitiveness, we’ve got to understand there are a thousand cameras on these players, there are stump mics that are turned up. If we don’t want to see or hear that stuff then take away the cameras, so we only have a couple of cameras, take the stump mics out and you won’t hear anything. Simple.” added Mitchell Johnson

Tim Paine’s Future As Captain

Tim Paine’s is expected to continue his leadership in the upcoming tour of South Africa and a lot about his future will depend on the tactics against the mighty South African team. A series loss again might just close the doors for Tim Paine and with his age being a factor, he might not be able to make a comeback again into the Australian setup.

The home series loss to India has pushed Australia to the third position in the world championship table while India went past New Zealand to the first position.