New video footage has emerged from the Lord’s Long Room, showing MCC members abusing the Australian players as they climb up the stairs to their dressing room, with much of that being directed towards Usman Khawaja.

Alex Carey’s controversial stumping of Jonny Bairstow on the fifth day of the Lord’s Test ignited the home crowd, leading to boos towards the Australian team and players throughout the rest of the game.

Things took an ugly turn during the lunch break when the teams were headed back to their dressing rooms. Those in the Long Room, through which the players have to pass to reach the pavilion at Lord’s, made their feelings clear to the Australian team as they made their way back.

The members shouted at the Australian players, leading to Cricket Australia demanding an investigation into the incident and the Marylebone Cricket Clube (MCC) suspending three of the members pending inquiry.

In the footage that was out in the public domain earlier, Khawaja and David Warner were seen confronting one of the abusive members in the Long Room, before being asked to move away from the scene by security.

A new video has emerged, and it shows that while the members were commenting, jeering, and abusing the entire Australian team as they walked up the stairs, much of that abuse was directed towards Khawaja.

The video was shared with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. It was taken from a mobile phone and is from a different angle from the one that was broadcast live during the game.

Chants of “Cheat, cheat” can be heard in the video. While much of what is being said is not discernible, Khawaja can be seen stopping and pointing out one of the members to the security as he is going up the stairs.

The Age spoke to some witnesses who claimed that they were “disgusted” and “shocked” by some of the language used by the MCC members, especially for Khawaja.

Khawaja himself has come out and spoken about the incident, saying that he was “disappointed by some of the stuff that came out of the member’s mouths.” Speaking to Nine, he said: “The [Lord’s] crowd is great, particularly the members are great, (but) some of the stuff coming out of the members’ mouths was really disappointing.

I wasn’t going to stand by and cop it, so I just talked to a few of them. A few of them were throwing out some pretty big allegations and I just called them up on it.”

This incident comes against the backdrop of the damning report by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC), which found that “English cricket suffers from widespread and deep-rooted racism, sexism, elitism, and class-based discrimination at all levels of the game.”

The investigation by the MCC is currently ongoing and there have been no suggestions yet as to whether the abuse directed towards Khawaja, who is a Muslim of Pakistani heritage, was racial in nature.

The MCC have unreservedly apologised to the Australian team for the behaviour of their members in the Long Room. Irrespective of whether their investigation finds proof of any racial abuse or not, the incident marks a sad day in the otherwise revered history of the Lord’s Long Room.

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