The Spirit Of Cricket was invoked and debated heavily once again following the controversial run-out of Jonny Bairstow in the Lord’s Test by Alex Carey on Day 5.
Despite Ben Stokes‘ heroics with the bat, Australia won the second Ashes 2023 Test at Lord’s by 43 runs, taking a 2-0 lead in the series, and one step closer to winning their first Ashes series in England since 2001.
Apart from Ben Stokes’ stunning century, Day 5 of the Lord’s Test was also marred by another controversy, less than 24 hours after Mitchell Starc’s (non) catch controversy, which ignited more debate.
In the first session of Day 5, as Australia continued with their short ball ploy, Jonny Bairstow ducked under a bumper from Cameron Green. It was the last ball of the over, and Bairstow was quick to move out of the crease and started walking toward the other end.
However, Alex Carey was quick to react, and a second after collecting the ball, and seeing Bairstow walk out of his crease. Carey threw the ball at the stumps and hit the target with Bairstow well outside his crease, unaware that Carey has ran him out. Alex Carey was the first to start celebrating the run out before the other Aussies joined in. Bairstow was given out after checking with the third umpire.
While many online suggested that Pat Cummins should have retracted his appeal and show Spirit Of Cricket, this time there was no Spirit of Cricket shown by the Australians. These are the same Australians and their fans who have criticised the likes of Deepti Sharma and R Ashwin for running out batters at the non-striker’s end (Mankading), but now the Aussie fans had no complaints with Carey running out Bairstow in such a manner.
Gautam Gambhir called out the Australians for their double standards
Former India batsman Gautam Gambhir took to Twitter to call out the “sledgers” that are the Australians and asked whether they Spirit of Cricket lectures are only restricted toward Indians.
“Hey sledgers….does spirit of the game logic apply to u or is it just for Indians?” Gautam Gambhir tweeted.
Hey sledgers….does spirit of the game logic apply to u or is it just for Indians?
— Gautam Gambhir (@GautamGambhir) July 2, 2023
