England captain Ben Stokes took the moral high ground claiming he would’ve withdrawn the controversial appeal against Jonny Bairstow during the fifth day of the 2nd Test at Lord’s.
Bairstow wandered off his crease assuming the ball was dead having ducked underneath a short delivery from Cameron Green. Wicketkeeper Alex Carey hit the bull’s eye to have his English counterpart stumped that resulted in the crowd booing the Australian teams through the remainder of the morning session.
During an interaction with BBC’s Test Match Special, the presenter told Australia captain Pat Cummins that Stokes says he would have withdrawn the appeal.
Cummins gave a blunt, one-word response.
“OK.”
And continued, “(It was) fair play. That is the rules. That is how I saw it.”
When asked if there’s any bad blood between the two opponents following the controversy, Cummins said, “Not from our team, you might have to ask them. It was a wonderful contest, it’s been a great Ashes series so far.”
During the post-match presentation ceremony, Cummins defended the dismissal claiming Carey had observed Bairstow leaving the crease on multiple occasions with the ball seemingly in play.
“I think Carey saw it happen a few balls previously, three or four balls previously, and there’s no pause, catch it, straightaway and throw at the stumps. I thought it was totally fair play. That’s how the rule is. Some people might disagree. That’s how I saw it,” Cummins told Sky TV.
Later on, Cummins was quizzed about the incident and he credited Carey for his alertness.
“You see Jonny do it all the time. He did it on day one to Davey Warner. He did it in 2019 to Steve (Smith). It’s a really common thing for keepers to do if they see about a batter keep leaving their crease. So Kez [Carey], full credit to him. He saw the opportunity. I think Jonny did it a few balls beforehand. Rolled it at the stumps. Jonny left his crease. You leave the rest to the umpires,” Cummins said.
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