England captain Kelly Smith was appalled by Australian interviewer Ian Cohen’s twirl request and said yesterday that if he had asked her she would have slapped him.

Cohen asked female players Eugenie Bouchard and Serena Williams to “give a twirl” after their respective victories last week in the Australian Open and his request immediately drew outrage from the public.

Smith described his question as “ignorance” and said: If I was (asked by an interviewer to twirl) I would probably have slapped him around the face or something. It was an insult to women’s sport.