'Kept smacking you lot': Steve Smith and Kevin Pietersen trade Ashes barbs

Mercurial Aussie Steve Smith might be missing some of that competitive spirit in isolation after taking a sledge at Ashes foe Kevin Pietersen, but it didn’t take long for the outspoken Englishmen to hit back.

Pietersen launched his YouTube channel on the weekend with an old clip of himself facing a bowling machine with a blindfold on.

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The video, posted before an Ashes tour, showed Pietersen hitting the ball out of the park into a nearby house.

‘Crank it up as fast as you want, buddy,” the fiery batsman quips in the video.

Whether the video is real or fake is still up for debate, but it is all in good fun.

However, Smith - Australia’s 2019 Ashes hero - was quick to jump on the clip and take a dig at Pietersen.

“Should have batted with that (blindfold) on more often,” Smith joked on Instagram.

But never one to keep his mouth shut, Pietersen hit back with an Ashes dig.

“It felt like I was batting blindfolded when I kept smacking you lot for 10 years!” he wrote.

Pietersen’s Ashes record

Pietersen has never been shy to take a dig at the Aussies and often painted himself as the villain during a series.

But it could have also been because of his impressive record against Australia

He played 27 matches against Australia, scoring 2,158 runs at 44.95.

The aggressive batsman also notched four centuries.