Last Updated on 5 months by Charbel Coorey
Joe Root, England’s second-highest run-scorer in Tests, admitted that he might have taken the same action Alex Carey and Australia did in the stumping of Jonny Bairstow. A year on from the incident, Root had his say in a three-part documentary series named ‘The Ashes 2023 | Our Take’.
Tempers flared at Lord’s, leading to scenes never seen before at the venue. Australian players were abused on the way back to the dressing room, with England’s players – notably Stuart Broad – very angry on the field. It led to huge debates afterwards on the “Spirit of Cricket” led by Piers Morgan and co.
Jonny [Bairstow] will hate me for saying this… – Joe Root
“Initially I was quite angry, but I think when you’re involved in the game it’s very difficult to put yourself in the other position,” Root said.
“So I’d like to say I would have dealt with it differently [than Australia], but I could very easily have done the same thing.
“At the end of the day it’s within the laws of the game. You should be aware as a player. Jonny will hate me saying this, but if you stay in your crease you can’t get given out can you?”
Bairstow’s dismissal left England precariously placed at 193/6 chasing 371 in what had been a very poor performance by the team up until that point. The hosts were 188/1 in their first innings in response to Australia’s 416, batting in glorious sunshine after Nathan Lyon had torn his calf. But, a host of poor dismissals handed the advantage to the Aussies.
It was actually the stumping that sparked England into life. Ben Stokes went into beast mode, smashing the Australian bowlers to every corner of Lord’s in what was shaping up to be a repeat of Headingley in 2019.
“At the end of the day it’s within the laws of the game. You should be aware as a player. Jonny will hate me saying this, but if you stay in your crease you can’t get given out can you?”
Joe Root on the Jonny Bairstow dismissal.
The England captain and a fired-up Broad combined for 108 runs, but the game had a quick end once Stokes was dismissed with the score on 301.
“It was genuine anger and red mist for about ten minutes,” Broad recalled as he walked through the Lord’s pavilion and out onto the field to bat. “I can’t really remember what I was saying, I had lost the plot a little bit.”
“I kept up this sort of pantomime performance for about three hours. I carried on doing my petulant nonsense. “This … ignited the series. This is what we wanted; the fans are properly with us here.”
England went on to lose the Lord’s Test by 43 runs to go 2-0 down in the 2023 Ashes. They fought back very well, but their quest to regain the urn was thwarted by the Manchester rain. The series ended 2-2.
