Pat Cummins has revealed his role in the controversial Jonny Bairstow stumping that rocked the 2023 Ashes at Lord’s last summer.
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The stumping of Jonny Bairstow by Alex Carey at the stroke of lunch on the fifth day of the Lord’s Ashes Test last year took the cricketing world by storm, leading to widespread and polarising reactions from not only Australia and England fans and experts but also the neutrals.
In the latest season of The Test, a documentary series covering the Australian men’s cricket team that is scheduled to come out on May 24 on Amazon Prime Video, Australia captain Pat Cummins revealed his own crucial role in the controversial stumping on Bairstow.
Having noticed Bairstow wander out of the crease after ducking under bouncers, Cummins notified Carey to have a throw at the stumps: “Cam Green was bowling and bowled a bouncer and he [Bairstow] ducked underneath it and then just walked out of his crease. So I just said to Kez [Carey] the ball before, I said ‘Kez, just have a throw’.”
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As it turned out, Carey did have a throw and caught Bairstow off guard. The dismissal resulted in a meltdown inside the Lord’s Long Room as several MCC members turned abusive towards the Australia players walking back to the dressing room at lunch.
“Walking back into the Long Room, it was like we’d ripped the soul of out them. Absolutely, yeah, people stepped over the line,” Cummins recalls in the documentary.
Usman Khawaja shares an anecdote of just how hostile the Long Room had become: “One of them [the members] was spraying me. I was like ‘nup, you can’t be saying that stuff’. He said ‘oh, I can say whatever I effing want’, like a sense of entitlement almost.”
England eventually lost that Test despite Ben Stokes’ valiant 155 as Australia went 2-0 up. They weren’t able to hold on to the lead though as England bounced back in the second half of the Ashes to level it 2-2.
