All-rounder Ben Stokes has cheekily responded to Mitchell Johnson’s mocking Instagram remark on the England team in which he ridiculed the side and Stokes in particular for choosing fist bumps over handshakes on their Sri Lanka tour.

“Bowl’s to the left bowls to the right I wonder if big bad Mitch likes Marmite,” tweeted Stokes, reworking the Barmy Army’s famous chant on Johnson’s bowling: “He bowls to the left, he bowls to the right, that Mitchell Johnson, his bowling is sh*t*”. The riposte from Stokes came after the former Australia quick took to Instagram to sledge the all-rounder and his team.

Bowl’s to the left bowls to the right I wonder if big bad Mitch likes Marmite https://t.co/6HkfJyPlo3

— Ben Stokes (@benstokes38) March 5, 2020

On his Instagram story, Johnson had embedded a picture of a news article carrying a pre-tour statement from Root, who declared that the England team won’t be shaking hands on their tour to Sri Lanka in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

Below the picture, Johnson wrote: “Is this a p*** take? You can jam your fist pump England hahahaha just be careful though, Stokesy might react with a sucker punch.”

Stokes was infamously involved in a brawl outside of a Bristol nightclub in 2017 in which he punched a man. He was later cleared of affray but fined £30,000 and banned for eight England matches.