Keep bleating, England. We are loving every moment of it

The English cricket team watch over Pat Cummins during the Second Test of the Ashes at Lord’s.

By now, we all know that UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak agrees with Ben Stokes. Sunak, too, would not want to win a game in the manner Australia did at Lord’s on Sunday night.

Sunak said so, in a statement issued on Monday.

Practising the none too subtle art of political distraction, Sunak’s remarks were an attempt at political legerdemain for local consumption. Don’t stare transfixed at the smouldering wreck right in front of you. Look over there.

As it stands, the Sunak statement could be seen as a signal of a souring of relations between the two nations. If this was so, one can only imagine the angry back and forth in Five Eyes comms, bristling with hostile language amid eye rolling on both sides that someone would have to try and explain cricket to the Americans again.

Would Australia now have to amend its travel advice for Australians in the Old Dart? Avoid old white men in red and yellow ties on their 16th Pimm’s?

What you might have missed is the UK Prime Minister was asked on Tuesday whether the stumping of Johnny Bairstow would necessitate a heated telephone conversation at the highest levels with Albo copping a gob full in the wee hours of the morning?

No Sunak replied, in person this time. There was no need for an entente cordiale between England and Australia to tidy relations up.

Phew. That was close.

International crisis averted.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has repeated the sentiment that Alex Carey’s stumping was not in the ‘spirit of cricket’.

We have to believe the English reaction to Johnny Bairstow is a bit of empty theatre otherwise we might have to come to the conclusion that the whinging Pom stereotype is actually a collective national psychological disorder.

The better judges of cricket in England have declared Bairstow at fault. England’s best cricket writer, commentator and former England captain, Mike Atherton described Bairstow as “dozy”. Another commentator and former England captain, Nasser Hussein believed the dismissal was fair. Former England captain and current No. 4 in the England batting order, Joe Root has called on everyone to “move on”.

However, the media persists in ramping up the emotions led by the always amusing, often excitable, Piers Morgan. On Tuesday Piers tweeted that he could not find an Australian cricketer or journalist prepared to come on his show and argue that Bairstow’s stumping was unfair, unethical and overall, a rum show. Give me a call, Piers. Once I get warmed up, you won’t be able to stop me.

Morgan believes Australians have not yet come to the conclusion that Bairstow’s dismissal was a profound, sorrowful mistake in need of correction and abject apology. Wrong, Piers. We are loving every moment of this. Please bleat harder.

Piers Morgan went as far as saying Shane Warne wouldn’t have approved of the decision.

Morgan then summoned perennial blatherer, Geoffrey Boycott, a man so lacking in team values that he was dropped from the England team in India for selfish batting. On Monday, Boycott called on the Australians to make a “fulsome apology” so that the series could continue without enduring enmity.

Reminder, Geoffrey Boycott, now Sir Geoffrey after receiving a gong from Theresa May as she hot footed out of No. 10, is not a wife beater. The woman he beat wasn’t his wife.

In 1998, a French Magistrate’s court convicted Boycott of the brutal beating of his then girlfriend, Margaret Moore in a hotel in Antibes in 1996. He was handed a suspended sentence and a £5300 fine.

Yeah, nah. We won’t be copping lectures on morality from Geoffrey Boycott.

Stay in your crease.

It’s not the first lesson to be learned when a youngster commences a long education in cricket. It’s closer to the fifth. And if you ever forget it, a wicketkeeper will remind you.

Cameron Green bowled the final ball of the 52nd over, a half tracker which Bairstow left alone. Carey took the ball on the bounce and threw at the stumps in one movement. There was no delay. No mozzing, no practice throws.

Bairstow was in his crease as the ball left Carey’s gloves.

Without looking back, Bairstow left the crease, wandering down the wicket while the ball was in motion on the bounce towards the stumps. Bairstow had not satisfied himself that the ball was dead. He could only have understood it by watching the ball in transit from Carey to a nearby fielder.

Watch the ball. That’s lesson number one, by the way.

Sir Geoffrey Boycott demanded an apology from the Australian side over the incident.

Let’s imagine for a moment that Cameron Green had not bowled the ball, and that the delivery was, in the absence of the injured Nathan Lyon, flung down by Travis Head bowling his left arm tweakers. If Bairstow had allowed the ball through to Carey up at the stumps or been beaten by the delivery, would he have wandered out of his crease?

Bairstow was out stumped. Being out stumped is a humiliating form of dismissal. It speaks of a momentary loss of spatial sense, where a batter is beaten twice – once by the ball and in the second instance by failing to regain composure and grounding the bat or the foot behind the crease.

Generally, it comes after a wild swipe at a slow bowler where the batter has misjudged the pitch of the ball. But not always. England coach, and former captain of the Black Caps and wicketkeeper, Brendon McCullum was something of a master of the longer-range stumping, dismissing batters on at least two occasions in this manner in internationals. On one occasion in Christchurch in 2006, he ran out Muttiah Muralitharan who had left the crease to congratulate his batting partner, Kumar Sangakkara after the Sri Lankan run machine had racked up another century.

Regrets. Apparently Beerless Baz has a few.

But all the analysis might be unnecessary. We need only look at the scorecard and know that Bairstow was out. But if we listen to the whining of the Pimm’s crowd, he should not have been out due to some oblique concept known as the Spirit of Cricket.

In this interpretation, the Spirit of Cricket is nebulous, neo-colonial nonsense reinterpreted to fit any occasion that suits. As far as the Spirit of Cricket is codified, it merely says respect your captain, teammates, opponents and the authority of the umpires. Play hard and play fair. Accept the umpire’s decision.

And if you’re out stumped, tell your story walking and accept that you have made a bit of a mess of things.

One might not mind so much if England cricketers practised what they preached. Had W.G.Grace merely asked Sammy Jones if he wouldn’t mind terribly popping his bat behind the crease at The Oval in 1882 where it all began. Or had Douglas Jardine set an off-side field and instructed Larwood and Voce to bowl at the top of off. Or all those doctored pitches, dust bowls at Old Trafford or green seamers at The Oval, including in this series after the England skipper, Ben Stokes wagged a finger at groundsmen across the country, demanding fast, flat pitches which he clearly believes will advantage his team in their Baz ball pursuits.

Or that Stokes set a 3-6 field and had England’s bowlers including himself, bowl short ball after short ball for a session and a half to fields that were vaguely reminiscent of those seen on grainy film from the Adelaide Oval in January 1933. As Jardine had done, Stokes played within the rules but it led to some desultory, even boring play. If it persists into Headingley and beyond, the intervention of the umpires might be required.

No matter how you interpret the Spirit of Cricket, there is nothing in it that might offer second chances for a batter’s stupidity. Insofar as cricket mirrors life, lapses of judgment are not and should not be rewarded.