Just tried to put Rishabh Pant off and talk rubbish to get him involved, reveals Tim Paine

After almost a year of India’s historic Test series win Down Under, Australia skipper Tim Paine finally opened up about the “babysitting” banter between him and Rishabh Pant at the MCG. What might go down as the funniest sledging moment in the history of the game, Paine asked young Pant to babysit after the return of MS Dhoni in the ODI side while the Delhi lad didn't shy away from giving it back to “temporary captain.”

Paine shared that the hosts were desperate for some quick wickets and that's what made him try to rough up the young lad. While admitting that all the banter doesn't bother Pant, the Aussie skipper shared that it does help to break his concentration.

“Geez we were bored,” Paine said during Big Bash League commentary as per FoxSports.com. “Could not get a wicket. Well, Rick (Ponting) knows him quite well — one, he’s very very good, but two, we found out early in that series that discovered early in the 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 that time. But he’s a seriously talented player,” he added.

The banter became the talk of the town with both Paine and Pant taking swipes at each other. Paine’s babysitter sledge was countered through ‘temporary captain’ jibe by Pant later in the match but Paine's wife later got the Indian wicket-keeper to actually pose for a babysit photo, when the two met at the Australian prime minister's house ahead of the New Year's Test.