{"id":25192,"date":"2025-11-25T07:29:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T07:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/25\/aus-legend-fears-for-steve-smiths-mental-health-after-barmy-armys-sandpaper-sledge-cricket-news\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T07:29:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T07:29:15","slug":"aus-legend-fears-for-steve-smiths-mental-health-after-barmy-armys-sandpaper-sledge-cricket-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/25\/aus-legend-fears-for-steve-smiths-mental-health-after-barmy-armys-sandpaper-sledge-cricket-news\/","title":{"rendered":"AUS Legend Fears For Steve Smith’s Mental Health After Barmy Army’s Sandpaper Sledge | Cricket News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Last Updated:<\/span>

Former Australian head coach Lehmann has slammed England’s Barmy Army for targeting Steve Smith with sandpaper sledge.<\/h2>\n
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\"Australia<\/p>\n

Australia legend slams England’s Barmy Army. (Picture Credit: AFP)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Former Australian head coach Darren Lehmann has slammed England\u2019s Barmy Army for using sandpaper sledge against Steve Smith in the first Test of the 2025-26 Ashes series. Smith, who is one of the greatest Test batters of all time, was Australia\u2019s stand-in captain in the series opener at Optus Stadium in Perth, and he was targeted by travelling England fans for his involvement in the 2018 sandpapergate scandal that rocked Australian cricket. Smith was one of the three cricketers banned by Cricket Australia for his involvement in tampering with the ball with sandpaper during the March 2018 Test played against South Africa at Newlands in Cape Town.<\/p>\n

According to Lehmann, who was the head coach of the Australian team during that tour of South Africa, the players have already paid the price for ball-tampering, and the relentless borderline abuse is unwarranted.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou copy it every day,” Lehmann revealed on ABC Sport. \u201cYesterday (at Perth Stadium) I would have copped it maybe 20 or 30\u00a0times; obviously we made a mistake, but we paid the price\u2014it borders on abuse.”<\/p>\n

Lehmann feels the constant abuse is not good for Smith\u2019s mental health, but he is proud of the way Australian players have handled the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not great for your mental health, to be perfectly honest,” Lehmann said. \u201cBut the way Smith, Warner and Bancroft have come out the other side, that\u2019s been exceptional. I\u2019m really proud of the way they\u2019ve handled it.”<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s eight years ago, and you try and move on as best you can, but he (Steve Smith) is still playing every day, so it would be a lot worse for him, the abuse he gets,” Lehmann said.<\/p>\n

He targeted Barmy Army and asked if the ones targeting Smith for what happened eight years ago have not done anything wrong in their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn England they just don\u2019t forget; it\u2019s like they\u2019ve never done anything wrong in their life. The Barmy Army should be better than that, and most of them are\u2014it\u2019s only the ones who drink too much and carry on like pork chops.”<\/p>\n

First Published:<\/span><\/p>\n
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November 25, 2025, 12:35 IST<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

News<\/a> cricket<\/a> AUS Legend Fears For Steve Smith’s Mental Health After Barmy Army’s Sandpaper Sledge<\/span><\/div>\n
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Last Updated:November 25, 2025, 12:35 IST Former Australian head coach Lehmann has slammed England’s Barmy Army for targeting Steve Smith with sandpaper sledge. Australia legend slams England’s Barmy Army. (Picture Credit: AFP) Former Australian head coach Darren Lehmann has slammed England\u2019s Barmy Army for using sandpaper sledge against Steve Smith in the first Test of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cricket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}