Ashes 2023 was hit by a major controversy that culminated into a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) being banned and suspension of two others. Australia punished England batter Jonny Bairstow for casually venturing out of his crease during the Lord’s Test assuming the ball was dead by having him stumped.
The dismissal triggered a massive controversy with wicketkeeper Alex Carey bearing the brunt of it. Verbal volleys were reportedly hurled towards the Australian players as they walked through the Long Room during the lunch break.
Australian cricketers Usman Khawaja and David Warner confronted a couple of members after taking exception to their behaviour.
Australia captain Pat Cummins has revealed it was him who spotted Bairstow repeatedly leaving the crease and asked Carey to have a go at the stumps should the Englishman venture out again.
“Cam Green was bowling and bowled a bouncer and he (Bairstow) ducked underneath it and then just walked out of his crease,” Cummins says. “So I just said to Kez (Carey) the ball before, I said ‘Kez, just have a throw’,” Cummins said The Test documentary series.
Cummins said people ‘stepped over the line’ to register their protest at the legitimate dismissal.
“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 said.
Khawaja recalled his verbal exchange with an MCC member.
“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,” Khawaja said.
“One of them was foaming at the mouth. A bloke hit Bull [David Warner] when he went up the stairs,” adds Marnus Labuchagne.
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The backlash that followed left Steven Smith worried about Carey’s mental health.
Carey suffered a slump in form following the Lord’s Test
“I could sense he (Carey) wasn’t quite right mentally and I can understand it. I was worried about him and his well-being,” Smith said.
Khawaja says he felt bad for what Carey had to endure.
“Everyone projected on Kez and didn’t project on anyone else. It was all on Kez. Looking back on it, I just feel so bad for him what he went through at the time and what his family would have gone through being there at the time. It would have been so hard,” he said.
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