For context on the events from Lord’s 2023, let’s unpack some footage from Lord’s 1993. On a grey February morning, the ICC met with representatives from member nations regarding the 1996 ODI World Cup. The game’s governing body had operated out of Lord’s until that point. England had also been the host for the first three men’s ODI World Cups, before the venue for the next two editions moved to the Subcontinent and Australia respectively. Winning be damned, getting the sport’s most prestigious tournament back to the land was their highest concern. That meeting had to end well.
After 14 hours, the TCCB (the governing body for English cricket at the time) emerged with sullen faces. The World Cup was travelling back to the Subcontinent. Christopher Martin-Jenkins, on whose name a prestigious award is given to the most promising young cricket writer every year, wrote an article in the Daily Telegraph the following day, remarking, “England were the ideal venue, whose advantages cannot be matched by rival bidders from a vast and frequently unruly Subcontinent.”
If this reaction smells like a holier-than-thou custard, it was. England has a long history of struggling to understand agency and democracy. The game they once owned and distributed at will had outgrown its roots, and it didn’t go down well.
There seems to be lingering anguish to this day. Every year, during April and May, English broadsheets are peppered with columns about how the pure format of first-class cricket is getting massacred in the grotesque hands of the IPL and other franchise tournaments. Every other year, there are even more columns telling readers that The Ashes is the pinnacle of all cricket. And whenever someone with an ECB affiliation is found naive, and an opponent takes advantage through unconventional means, the fury reaches a fever pitch.
Similarly, there is a lovely aesthetic to the colour palette at Wimbledon. But it is unlikely that the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club has preserved that tradition of a strict dress code, unique across the sport because white clothing looks great on the lush grass. There is apparently a thrill to pushing the idea that “ours” is the purest form of civility.
One can be certain that Brendon McCullum, Ben Stokes, and the rest of the English team don’t believe in such obsolete values. They come off as normal, lovely people playing with infectious enthusiasm. But you hear them talk, and the colour changes. The recent narrative from their camp implies that their new approach to Test cricket is a rescue mission that doesn’t bother with results like other plebeian teams. Even if you take the post-match reactions and weekly columns as salty bluster, their opinions on Jonny Bairstow’s dismissal at Lord’s betray a sense of moral superiority. That they, in some way, hover a few inches above the ground when it comes to the applications of rules.
After the match, which should be remembered long for Ben Stokes’ superhuman batting effort on the final day, Stokes mentioned how he wouldn’t feel comfortable winning after a dismissal like Bairstow’s. Maybe making a career out of playing ice-veined knocks blurs one’s memory. On this very ground, Stokes once won a World Cup final that, undeniably, turned his team’s way after deflected overthrows off his bat. The rules applied that afternoon as they did on Sunday.
In the 24 hours since Bairstow’s dismissal, many from the English camp have demonstrated serious disgust at the Australians. Sir Geoffrey Boycott has suggested the Australian team should render an unreserved apology; Rishi Sunak, UK Prime Minister, has called the event distasteful.
As Roger Waters once wrote, “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.”
The English are not the only ones who break into the Spirit of Cricket tune every time they don’t like a decision, but their timbre is different. One can hear condescension and notes of “we decide the right way.” For decades, Australia did the same with sledging.
If Spirit of Cricket was the universal Bible for navigating this sport, Stuart Broad would’ve walked after middling Ashton Agar’s ball to first slip. And he, most certainly, wouldn’t have defended his actions 10 years later. If it was indeed a thing, Jonny Bairstow wouldn’t have thrown the ball at Marnus Labuschagne’s stumps on day one of this Test, trying to get the same dismissal he would eventually fall prey to.
So, when Bairstow gets stumped by Alex Carey after meandering from his crease, or Jos Buttler and Charlotte Dean get punished for strolling outside theirs, it isn’t the mode of dismissal that hurts English cricket’s elitists the most. The same crowd that booed the decision to play by the rules on Sunday was overjoyed the previous day when Mitchell Starc’s catch off Ben Duckett was declared as a not-out. Carey, Ravi Ashwin, and Deepti Sharma have told English cricket that they aren’t special snowflakes. That must hurt the most.
How utterly hilarious that the Lord’s long room, that archaic symbol of tradition and undeserved privilege, was outraged because an opposition team got a decision their way according to the very rules formalised within those walls. Nothing illustrates the futility of this debate better. The Spirit of Cricket, if such a thing existed, would mandate respecting the rules and the umpires. The self-proclaimed home of cricket was, to put it mildly, found short on Sunday. Just as it was found short on that morning of 1993, and many times before or since.
Water off a duck’s back for Pat Cummins and Co.
Dev is a Chennai-based composer and writer
