Ashes | Twitter laughs as Steve Smith abuses captaincy privileges by ignoring mates to take shocking review

A‌ustralia got off to the perfect start possible in the latest Ashes Down Under as the hosts scalped four before Lunch to leave England reeling at 105/4 at the break. Mitchell Starc played the destructor-in-chief as he began with a wicket maiden before scalping Ben Duckett and Joe Root in quick succession to leave England reeling at 39/3 within the first hour of play, before sounding Ben Stokes the death rattle early in the second session to further exacerbate matters. The onus thus lay on Harry Brook and Jamie Smith to sail England into calmer waters as the team's last recognized batting pair, a fact opposition skipper Steve Smith was well cognizant of as he let it tempt him into his first blunder of the series.

Jamie was just six balls into his innings when Scott Boland delivered a vicious inseamer from wide of the crease to rap the wicket-keeper batter on the front pad and send his team hurtling into a loud appeal. However, the umpire was quick to dismiss the query, prompting Steve to break out an impromptu town hall in the slip cordon. His first question was dircted towards Alex Carey, who expressed his doubts in alignment with Boland who began walking away from the incident. But Steve frantically told him to stand his ground as he went around the cordon asking his other teammates whether a review was worth taking, but the likes of substitute fielder Michael Neser had doubts writ large on their face as they kept hurrying to resume play. Yet, just when the conundrum seemed to have ended and the clock ticked down to its final couple of seconds, Steve put up his arms to signal for a review even as Boland continued to look perplexed by his captain's decisions.

As it turned out, the angle of the delivery couple with movement off the deck meant the Kookaburra was comfortably missing leg stump much to Steve's chagrin. Twitter, on the other hand, could not be more amused.

What a review

Half hearted

Yup

Why

First one

Maiden

Strange

Ultimate

Really

Ordinary