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.
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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.
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.
