More than a year after the famous ‘babysitting’ sledge, Tim Paine sheds light on it 

The sledging between Rishabh Pant and Tim Paine at the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne last year had made its way to the headlines. Paine had asked Pant to babysit his kids since Mahendra Singh Dhoni was re-called for limited-overs squad against Australia.

More than a year since that incident, the Australia captain has shed light on it while speaking during a Big Bash League game. Paine said that his side was not getting any wickets, which led to boredom, which in turn led him to start the banter. The Aussie also revealed that the sledge had no effect on the ‘talented’ batsman.

“Well Rick (Ponting) knows him quite well — one, he’s very very good, but two, we found out early in that series that sledging him was a waste of time. It just didn’t bother him, but what we found was that you could get a real lapse of concentration out of him so we went a bit that way. So I just tried to put him off and talk rubbish to try and get him involved because he was likely to play a poor shot at the time. But he’s a seriously talented player.”

Watch the video here:

Tim Paine doing some recruiting for the @HurricanesBBL out in the middle of the 'G... 😂 #AUSvIND pic.twitter.com/6btRZA3KI7

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) December 28, 2018

After the game when the Australian Prime Minister hosted the Australian and Indian team at his residence, Pant got to meet Paine’s family and also clicked a picture with Mrs Paine and her little boy.

Bonnie Paine posted the picture on Instagram with the caption ‘best babysitter’, following which she became a Twitter trend and her followers increased by thousands, especially from India.

India and Australia are currently playing the first of the three-match ODI series in Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium.