‘JONNY WILL HATE ME SAYING THIS’: ROOT ADMITS LORD’S STUMPING WAS FAIR
Jonny Bairstow was dropped from the England Test team this week, and has now had his former captain Joe Root concede there was every chance that he would have done the same thing Alex Carey and Pat Cummins did to stump him at Lord’s a year ago.
England formed something of a protective cordon around Bairstow after his dismissal during the memorable 2023 Ashes series, questioning Australia’s sportsmanship and revving up local crowds to go their hardest at the touring team.
But in England’s “right of reply” documentary about the Ashes, released a year to the day since the Bairstow dismissal, Root steps up to say that if Bairstow had not wandered so quickly out of his crease after ducking a Cameron Green bouncer, there would have been no dismissal.
The documentary also shows candid dressing room footage of Bairstow telling the team on the penultimate night of the Lord’s Test that he foresaw an “amazing” turnaround for England to win the game; as opposed to the stumping and furore that followed.
“Initially I was quite angry, but I think when you’re involved in the game it’s very difficult to put yourself in the other position,” Root told the ECB. “So I’d like to say I would have dealt with it differently, but I could very easily have done the same thing.
“At the end of the day, it’s within the laws of the game. You should be aware as a player. Jonny will hate me saying this, but if you stay in your crease you can’t get given out, can you?”
England were four wickets down with Ben Stokes and Ben Duckett at the crease and Bairstow next in, chasing 371 to win, when play ended on the fourth day.
“Look, I can’t wait for tomorrow,” Bairstow is shown as saying. “We’ve been a part of some special things over the last 18 months. And for me, it just feels like it could potentially be one of those amazing days, and someone just stand up and put their name on the board, make a contribution, stick your chest out, front up and we’ll be fine.”
All-rounder Moeen Ali also comments that Bairstow’s habit of stepping so quickly out of his crease after a ball is bowled opened him up to the type of dismissal that Carey pulled off.
“I always felt Jonny leaves his crease so early, he leaves the ball and just walks straight down, and I always felt he leaves early,” Moeen said.
Bairstow does not offer much of an opinion in this documentary, but he was previously quoted as offering a parallel between the stumping dismissal and his view that Australia claimed unfair catches during the series.
Among other insights, the documentary, titled The Ashes 2023: Our Take, shows how Stuart Broad harangued the Australian team both before and after the lunch break, either side of the wild scenes in the Lord’s Long Room that resulted in one MCC member being expelled and two others handed long-term bans.
“Not one single player went, ‘Lads this is a really bad decision’,” Broad tells David Warner and Steve Smith in particular. “I can’t believe one of you hasn’t gone, ‘This is a terrible decision’. And then you have 40,000 people booing you, in there [in the Long Room booing you].”
After the Ashes, Bairstow struggled at the ODI World Cup, on a tour of India and in the Twenty20 World Cup that ended over the weekend. He and his erstwhile wicketkeeping rival Ben Foakes have both been left out of the England Test squad for the home summer, replaced by Surrey talent Jamie Smith.
“Generally, his form, in all formats, has just been going slightly in the wrong direction,” England team director Rob Key said of Bairstow. “It’s an arduous task being a keeper and you want someone who can back up series after series. We weren’t convinced that Jonny would be able to do that, especially at the stage of his career that he’s at.”
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