England head coach Brendon McCullum has made his opinions clear on how he felt about the controversial run-out of Jonny Bairstow in the Lord’s Test by Alex Carey on Day 5.
The run-out of Bairstow by Carey at Lord’s has triggered a widespread debate with the English players, coaches, and fans invoking the Spirit of Cricket once again. Carey ran Bairstow out when he carelessly wandered outside his crease after ducking under a bouncer from Green. Carey collected the ball and without wasting anytime hit the stumps. Bairstow was deemed out as the ball wasn’t dead yet, according the umpires; this has now been turned into a stumping and not a run-out.
After the match ended, with Australia overcoming Ben Stokes’ heroics, winning by 43 runs and taking a 2-0 lead in the series, Brendon McCullum spoke his mind over this matter, saying that he and his team wouldn’t have done such a run-out as Carey did.
“I can’t imagine we’ll be having a beer with them any time soon,” McCullum told the BBC. “In the end you’ve got to live with the decisions you make, and that’s life. But I feel from our point of view, if we were in the same situation, we might’ve made a different decision.”
“I think it was more about the spirit of the game and when you become older and more mature you realise the game and the spirit of it is something you need to protect. You have to make decisions in the moment and they can have effects on games and people’s characters. By the letter of the law he is out. Jonny was not trying to take a run and the umpires had called ‘over’.”
Brendon McCullum did a similar runout in 2009
However, soon after Brendon McCullum’s comments went viral, fans on social media brought out a clip from the 2009 Champions Trophy where McCullum, the then New Zealand wicket-keeper, did to England batsman Paul Collingwood exactly as what Alex Carey did to Bairstow.
Here, check out the video:
A friendly reminder to all England supporters – Brendon McCullum attempted to do the exact same thing to Paul Collingwood back in 2009.
Funny how these things often come full circle 🤲🏽@wwos #TheAshes #9WWOS #ENGvsAUS pic.twitter.com/RiW9hynaSf
— Will Faulkner (@willzfaulk) July 2, 2023
However, the then New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori took back the appeal even as Collingwood was given out by the umpires. This has led to fans calling Brendon McCullum a hypocrite.
