Stuart Broad called Pat Cummins “an absolute disgrace” after the controversial Jonny Bairstow stumping during the Lord’s Test in the 2023 Ashes series, he has said in a new interview.

In an interview on the Up Front with Simon Jordan podcast, Broad gave a detailed insight into the on-field events which directly followed the infamous incident. Bairstow was stumped by Alex Carey when he left his crease after the last ball of the over on the final day of the second Ashes Test at Lord’s. The event has since divided opinion, with Bairstow breaking his silence earlier this week, saying in an extract of the new book ‘Bazball’ published in the Daily Telegraph: “If that’s how they want to go about it and win a cricket game or what have you, then so be it.”

Broad was seemingly not so philosophical in the immediate aftermath of the incident. “I was the next batsman, so I stood up to get ready after I heard the appeal,” said Broad. “I saw it on the TV and instantly thought ‘that won’t be out’, so I just sat back down. Then I heard a huge boo and I couldn’t believe that I was in. I had to scramble around a bit and what set me off was that I was walking through the Long Room, which is normally just a calm applause, but one of the members turned to me and said, ‘that was an absolute disgrace!’

“I walked out past Jonny, and normally you’d ask a couple of questions about how it is out there, but he was just like a raging bull staring at the floor and he didn’t even look at me. That revved me up.

“Pat Cummins was coming on to bowl, so I had to walk past him, and I just looked at him and said, ‘you’re an absolute disgrace’. He responded saying, ‘you’re hardly upkeeping of the spirit of cricket’. That upset me and the next 10 minutes I became very facetious. I had no real control over what I was doing.”

Broad came in with England still needing 177 runs to win the match and level the series. Ben Stokes went on to score a sublime 155 off 214 balls before England eventually fell 43 runs short of their target.

“There was a moment when the crowd were all chanting ‘same old Aussies, always cheating!’” continued Broad. “And with silly point and short leg in I was looking both of them in the eye singing it at them too.

“Ben Stokes just told me he was going to keep quiet and keep going, but that I should carry on doing what I was doing, and I did. Cummins went down to long on and I was still screaming over to him, ‘Pat, all these boos are for you!’. It got to the point where some of them were just genuinely asking me to calm down a bit.

“For everyone watching, it drew people in who weren’t even cricket fans. We weren’t talking about the incident as a group, but it added a steeliness. There was a grit and mindset that if they were going to play like that, we were going to play with our skill and intent, but also be hard as nails.”

In the same interview, Broad also revisited another infamous Ashes incident from his career back in 2013. Broad was caught up in controversy during the Trent Bridge Test of that series, when he was given not out after clearly nicking a ball from Ashton Agar to Michael Clarke at first slip. Broad stood his ground and did not walk off the field and went on to score 65 in a 14-run England win.

“I got embroiled in a spirit of cricket argument when I nicked off against Australia and didn’t walk,” Broad said. “It’s a trait of 99 per cent of cricketers – you can’t name me a player who nicks off and walks consistently. In that series, 21 of the 24 players who nicked off didn’t walk straight away. I genuinely believe you just have to let the umpires make the decision.

“I don’t think anyone really knows exactly what the ‘spirit of cricket’ is. There are no rules around nicking the ball and not walking, I just did exactly what 99% of professional cricketers would do.”

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