Tim Paine gets trolled for blaming India for Gabba Test loss, fans call it 'poor excuse'

Australia Test captain Tim Paine has been trolled by fans for blaming the Border-Gavaskar Test series loss on India. Paine had earlier blamed India for creating "sideshows" to distract the Kangaroos during the Test series, adding his side "fell for that". Paine, while speaking to the press in Australia, said that India is "very good" at creating sideshows and niggling the opposition with things that don't matter, suggesting his team lost the four-match Test series because they were "distracted". Paine faced a lot of flak after his team went down 2-1 in the Test series against an inexperienced Indian team. 

Paine highlighted one particular incident where several media reports had claimed that the Indian contingent is unwilling to go to Brisbane for the final Test match because of the quarantining rules in the Australian state. However, not a single member of the Indian squad, including players and support staff, had ever mentioned that the team doesn't want to travel to Brisbane. Paine suggested that the tactic was used by the Indian team to distract the Australian side from concentrating on the final Test match. 

"Part of the challenge of playing against India is they're very good at niggling you and trying to distract you with stuff that doesn't really matter and there were times in that series where we fell for that. The classic example was when they said they weren't going to the Gabba so we didn't know where we were going. They're very good at creating these sideshows and we took our eye off the ball," Paine was quoted as saying by news.com.au.

'Poor excuse' 

Here is how fans reacted to Tim Paine's latest comment about the Test series loss against India. Some fans even dubbed Paine's comment as an "excuse", while others shared memes and jokes to mock the Australian wicketkeeper-batsman, who also failed on the personal front as he couldn't score many runs with the bat and showed inconsistency with the gloves. 

India won the Border-Gavaskar trophy 2-1 after coming on the back of a humiliating loss in the first match of the four-match series, where the Kangaroos bowled out the world's number 1 Test team for just 36 runs. India had lost all its key players early on in the series but still managed to retain the trophy with a young contingent that had travelled down under as substitutes or net bowlers. The series went on to become one of the most exciting Test encounters in the history of the game. 

IMAGE: AP/Twitter/IMBhanu