Jonny Bairstow reignites Ashes stumping row،
Jonny Bairstow has provided his first in-depth thoughts on his controversial dismissal of Alex Carey in the second Ashes Test of the summer.
When Bairstow came out of his crease after the last ball of an over on the final day at Lord’s, wicketkeeper Carey threw the ball underarm onto the stumps and struck with Bairstow well out of his ground, oblivious to the fact that the ball had been thrown. Over had not been called and it was awarded by the television umpire, but Australia’s decision not to withdraw its appeal led England’s players to claim that stumping, although legal, did not was not in the spirit of the game.
The Australian players were insulted by fans and club members as they left for lunch, but won the second Test by 43 runs.
The stump grubbing incident highlighted a tense series. But Bairstow had kept a low profile until the release of extracts from Lawrence Booth and Nick Hoult’s new book. Bazball: The inside story of a Test cricket revolution in the English newspaper Telegraph Monday.
“The decision was I was out and I moved on,” Bairstow told the writers in an interview after an internet session at The Oval ahead of the fifth Test of the series. “I haven’t talked about it since. I’ve stayed quiet. It’s on them.
“If that’s how they want to go about it and win a cricket match or whatever, then so be it.”
England all-rounder Moeen Ali, who was also quoted in the book, suggested that Australia and captain Pat Cummins missed the opportunity to exorcise any remaining demons from the Newlands ball-tampering saga by 2018, after which they were labeled as cheaters.
“My view was that it was obviously over,” Moeen told the authors of Bazball. “I just thought it was a great opportunity for Pat Cummins to put a stop to a lot of things that had happened before.
“Not just putting them to bed, but taking away that label that they’ve had for a while with ‘Sandpapergate’.”
Bairstow said there was a difference between catching a batter who was sneaking out of his crease for cynical purposes and catching a batter by surprise, as Australia did.
“If you’re trying to gain an advantage, that’s a good thing,” he said. But if you start in your crease, you dodged, tapped, tapped, scratched. I even dragged my bat, looked up, then left.
“I’ve never seen that happen from anyone starting in their home turf. I don’t think you want that to carry over into kids’ cricket.”
Bairstow also took issue with some of Australia’s behavior on the field. He sowed doubt over whether the ball had hit the ground before Steven Smith controlled it to dismiss Joe Root on the second day of the Lord’s Test, and called into question a call for a catch from Marnus Labuschagne earlier in the series.
“There’s guesswork around everything,” he said. “Fingers under the ball when the ball still touches the ground. Celebrate when the ball has touched the ground. Marnus celebrated at Edgbaston at the short match.
“Then the one to whom ‘Rooty’ fell at Lord’s, when [Smith] said his fingers were under the ball. However, they were widely flared. But it was distributed, it doesn’t matter, it’s an integral part of the game and the decisions the referees make.”
