Bairstow was stumped after he sleepwalked on the final day at Lords’. There was a huge uproar for every English supporter. Everyone invoked the spirit of cricket and absolutely pounced on the Australians. The Aussies on the otherhand remained convinced that they acted within the law of the game and they are not at fault. Even the usually well-behaved MCC members got into the act and abused the Australians in the revered Long Room during lunch break. Australians have become enemy number one in England. Having said that, why do teams nowadays talk about the spirit of cricket? Does England or Australia have the right to talk about it? For that matter, does any team have the right to talk about it? Let me analyse the spirit of Cricket and Bairstow.
First about the incident
YouTube is now filled with the Bairstow incident. The replay of the said incident is available at the click of a mouse. Just a casual glance will reveal the actual play. Bairstow ducks into a bouncer from Green and without any hesitation, walks off. At this point, if one were to look at Alex Carey, it can be clearly seen that he caught the ball and threw it in one swift motion. There wasn’t even the slightest pause. It all happened in one seamless motion. This essentially means that the ball wasn’t dead and was very much in play. This wasn’t different from stumping. Even when a batsman is stumped, he wasn’t attempting to run. He merely tries to get back into the crease. Ofcourse, Bairstow forgot that there was one.
It was Bairstow’s stupidity that led to his downfall. He has got no one to blame except himself. He did not even return and tap the bat inside the popping crease to signal that he understood that the ball was dead but kept walking without imagining the consequences. Australians were well within their rights to take the opportunity which they did.
Critics of the Australian alleged lack of sportsmanship must understand that they are in England to win The Ashes and not to make friends. England will do well at introspecting and looking at their performance rather than blaming external factors for their subjugation so far. The ill-timed declaration, misfiring batsmen, seamers of the same wavelength and above all, a wicket-keeper who cannot catch the ball.
Some of the comments
Geoffrey Boycott, the much respected former English batsman and commentator, has called for a public apology from the Australians.
“Australia need to have a think about what they did and make a fulsome public apology. That way it will redress the situation and everyone can then move on.”
Now, this is a bit farfetched. The Australians have not committed a crime to ask for an apology. What they did was well within the laws of the game. Boycott a respected commentator who is quite blunt when he speaks, must have squarely blamed Bairstow for his moment of madness. Instead, he called for Australia to apologise. It is not correct Mr. Boycott.
“SPIRIT OF CRICKET REDUCED TO ASHES,” the headline splashed across The Daily Express read
Daily Star’s headline: “SHAMELESS STUMPING STORM. SAME OLD AUSSIES”.
Ben Stokes, “If the shoe was on the other foot I would have put more pressure on the umpires and asked whether they had called over and had a deep think about the whole spirit of the game and would I want to do something like that. For Australia, it was the match-winning moment. Would I want to win a game in that manner? The answer for me is no.”
Australia cannot claim that they are saints
Another incident on the same day happened just a few overs before Bairstow was stumped. Mitchell Starc, fielding in fine-leg, sprinted and caught a skied ball from the blade of Duckett. At first glance, everyone would have thought that that was a good running catch until multiple replays revealed that Starc dropped that catch. He was seen dragging the ball along the turf which implies it wasn’t a clean catch. Starc would have certainly realised that he did not catch the ball cleanly and yet, he went ahead with celebrating the wicket. The least he could have done was to inform the umpires that he wasn’t sure. Instead, he chose to make his illegitimate catch a legitimate one.
One thing is for sure. Majority of the English think that this Australian side is a bunch of cheats, whereas a majority of the Australians think that England is the moral police of the cricketing world applying the rules whenever it suits them.
Wrapping up spirit of cricket and Bairstow
None of the sides, especially over the last 40 years, has got any right to talk about the spirit of cricket. The on-field behaviour of every team has been nothing short of outrageous. None of the players can call themselves saints because they were involved in one incident or the other during their careers.
What about the sledging, mental disintegration, or abuse on the field? Isn’t that against the spirit of the game? What about sexual innuendoes? The most famous being Rod Marsh’s taunt of Ian Botham where he quipped, “how is your wife and my kids”. The point I am trying to make is that the spirit of the game was lost longtime ago. There is no point in invoking it at this point in time. No one, absolutely no one is playing within the spirit of the game. History of the game is littered with lots of examples. The new nation to join the game, Afghanistan, they cannot be exempted either.
The bottomline is that the game has become ultra-competitive with enormous money and far higher stakes. Every team will grab whatever opportunity that they are presented with to win the game so long as it is within the laws of the game. Australia got one such opportunity and grabbed it with both their hands to win a famous test. England will have to introspect.
Other articles related to The Ashes can be read here, here and here