Opinion
When Australian wicket-keeper Alex Carey threw down the stumps as England’s Jonny Bairstow arrogantly blundered his way out of his crease, most spectators and viewers would have immediately known the 2023 Ashes were going to heat up even further.
In the immediate aftermath as Bairstow continues to meander down the pitch, Australian commentator Mark Taylor immediately recognises the moment: “Ooh! Now! This is going to be interesting!”
And interesting it was, as third umpire Marais Erasmus looked at footage and witnessed what all of us have already seen and already knew not to do: as the ball is already in flight behind him, the camera tracks the ball and Carey’s subsequent gather and throw, before panning back to show Bairstow already perambulating out of his crease for reasons known only to him.
Bairstow exited the crease before the ball had reached Alex Carey, and Carey had collected the bouncing ball then thrown at the stumps in a single motion. According to as accurate timing as I could replicate off the footage, it took 1.43 seconds for the ball to travel from above Bairstow’s head to the moment that Carey had gathered the ball from the ground, secured the ball in his throwing hand, and thrown the ball.
The throw took 1.54 seconds from Carey to stumps, by which point Bairstow appears to be at least two metres out of his ground.
Any talk of the Englishman having assumed the ball to be dead, of the umpires having signalled the ball to be dead, or of the umpires signalling that the over had been concluded simply does not add up within the 2.97 seconds that elapsed.
Similarly, any talk of Australians being somehow particularly underhanded in throwing down the stumps in this manner are immediately undercut by the deluge of examples floating around social media and news articles of other teams doing the same thing – not least of all Jonny Bairstow two days earlier, or England coach Brendon McCullum during his own playing career for New Zealand.
Moreover, limiting ourselves to examples from the second Test, both Carey and Bairstow’s attempts (one successful, the other very wide of the mark) are identical in that both keepers complete the gather and throw in a single motion with only enough time to eye the stumps – as compared to claims to the contrary which appear to leave hours’ worth of time to connive and act with malicious intent as the umpires all but serve tea to the unsuspecting batter.
Jonny Bairstow looks frustrated after being run out by Alex Carey. (Photo by Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
And yet, despite the preponderance of evidence highlighting Bairstow’s egotistical stepping out of his crease, the speed with which he did so and with which Carey threw at the stumps, despite the evidence of Bairstow and England’s vociferous coach being guilty of the same so-called “crime”, and despite the fact that nobody is claiming that the umpire’s verdict was against the rules, despite all this, the only complaint people have is that it was morally wrong.
Morally wrong?
My 2001 hardcover copy of the Oxford Dictionary defines ‘moral’ thus:
“1 concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour and the goodness or badness of human character. 2 conforming to accepted standards of behaviour. 3 psychological rather than physical or practical”
Brendon McCullum is quoted in response to Australia’s actions as saying, “I was lucky enough to play for a long period of time and you learn over a long period that the game and the spirit of the game is so vital to this great game.”
One can only assume, then, that when people refer to the dismissal as being “morally wrong” or against the “spirit of the game” they must instead be in favour of a temporary cessation of the rules of cricket?
Similarly, it serves to reason that these same learned priests of cricket theology and ethics must also be of the opinion that Ben Duckett should have heroically ignored the third umpire’s verdict and marched bravely off the field after the screens at the ground clearly demonstrated Mitchell Starc had quite obviously taken a superb outfield catch?
Or maybe it is only the Australians who must make atonement for their cricketing sins, and Steve Smith’s clumsy-looking Joe Root catch should have been deemed incorrect by the players on-field, and Root chaired back to the crease by the Australian team?
Except, that is not how cricket, or sport in general, works. We play sport according to the rules which adjudicate the game (however much we may at times despise their interpretation – Starc’s catch was a catch!).
In F1 – as was demonstrated just this past weekend – the white line is the boundary of the track and when a car puts all four wheels outside that line they are deemed to have broken track limits. As will no doubt be on show at Wimbledon for the next two weeks, balls that are outside the lines are called out.
And dismissals in cricket that adhere to the rules of the game and are adjudicated as such by the officials are deemed to be out. Morality doesn’t come into it.
Morality only comes into the game when cheating is involved – such as, say, forcing the junior-most member of the team to carry sandpaper in his pocket to affect the condition of the ball. At times like this, the apparent morality of a decision is quite clearly relevant – not to mention that it also contravenes the rules of the game.
Conversely, neither Australia or England – not to mention their own ardent supporters, apologists, and critics – should be too quick to mount a moral high-horse over taking action independent of the umpire’s official verdicts, given how ready each team is to nick the ball and refuse to walk until given out (re: Broad in 2013, who didn’t walk amidst absurd scenes; or Crawley, 2023, who only walked when given out despite knowing he’d nicked the ball).
It is important to recognise that morality should rarely be used to define the merits of sport, and only in times when the rules are clearly broken, or personal injury is at stake.
Those so willing to decry moral outrage or declare a particular incident morally wrong or right often serve only to reveal their own hypocrisy while failing to even-handedly apply their loose ethics.
If it was morally wrong for the Australians and captain Pat Cummins to appeal Jonny Bairstow’s flagrant disregard for the rules of cricket and not then immediately recall him to the crease upon being ruled rightfully out, then there are a lot of other incidents from both dressing rooms that must similarly be held up for criticism.
Except they’re not, are they?
Because that’s not the point, is it?
The point is self-righteous indignation and jingoistic conceit.
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