Much ado about nothing as English sneer about Australian morals

They’ve established a working committee at Lord’s to deal with hooliganism and the decline of Western Civilisation in the Long Room, meanwhile those of us who were not born to rule are wondering what rules apply, when and where.

Skippers Ben Stokes and Pat Cummins after the day at Lord’s. Picture: Getty Images.

They’ve established a working committee at Lord’s to deal with hooliganism and the decline of Western Civilisation in the Long Room, meanwhile those of us who were not born to rule are wondering what rules apply, when and where.

Anthony Ward’s father was not keen to let the 11-year-old attend the Adelaide Test in 1979 by himself but solved the problem of needing to work that day himself by getting posted to the ground.

Dad was an ambulance officer and could not have picked a more momentous day to position himself at the cricket where, mostly, one imagines days passed relatively incident free.

This was, however, the day when England fast bowler Bob Willis struck opening batsman Rick Darling on the chest causing the Australian to inhale his chewing gum.

Darling collapsed, the first to attend, English spinner John Emburey, banged him on the chest and umpire Max O’Connell provided mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

“I can still picture my father jumping the fence and later carrying him off on the stretcher,” Ward, who is now a director of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, wrote in an email to the Cricket Et Cetera podcast.

“Later in the day Dad was called into (administrator) Phil Ridings office and the general manager of the ambulance service (who happened to be at cricket) was also present.

“He was told by Mr Ridings that when he jumped the fence the umpires in the middle had not signalled for medical attention so even though Rick Darling had stopped breathing so he had no right to enter the field of play.”

Pat Cummins observed this week that anybody who plays cricket knows that Jonny Bairstow is out. A conga line of former England captains agreed with him. An avalanche of uncovered incidents from games past indicate that Bairstow himself is familiar with and keen to remove batters stumped no matter what the circumstance.

So what’s the difference this time? What has sparked this “festival of whingeing” – a line included in another email by another Cricket Et Cetera listener, Elliott Richardson.

Perhaps the Bairstow who wears keeping gloves is not the same one when wearing batting gloves.

And the difference for Brendon McCullum? Well, he’s seen the light, he’s apologised and regrets that dismissal of Muttiah Muralitharan who left the crease to celebrate Kumar Sangakkara’s century in that distant Test match.

As recently elevated spiritual leader of the Bazball cult, Guru Baz has taken it on himself to lecture others not to make the same mistakes he once did.

Ben Stokes too is keen to let us know that he wouldn’t have done the same thing. We’ll have to take his word on that, but Ricky Ponting – a man who knows a thing or two about the heat of the moment – was a bit cynical about Stokes’ hypotheticals and sanctimony.

Cummins was asked if this is all a massive smokescreen to excuse England’s inability to win a Test it had on toast when it won the toss and moved to 1-188 in the first innings. An outcome that mirrored how the first match was similarly squandered.

“The two things that separates both of these two captains is that Ben Stokes had about three hours to think about his answer,” Ponting told The ICC Review.

“Pat Cummins had about 10 seconds to think about what he was going to do and whether he was going to uphold it (the appeal) or not.

“It’s pretty easy for Ben at the end (of the match) to sit down and give that point of view. But he was actually out there as the batting captain of his team. He could have asked there and then in the heat of the battle if he was thinking clearly like he said he was three hours later in post-game.

“If he was thinking enough, he would have said that to the umpires, ‘You know, was it over? Had you started to move? Is the ball dead?’ They were the questions that had to be answered then and not at the end of the game when he said it.”

The minor incident which had English columnists sneering about Australian morals and Piers Morgan referring to the underarm delivery that occurred at least a decade before any of the current Australian side was born.

But you know, convict stain and all that, difficult to wash out.

England having cut its ties from Europe and worked through a ring cycle of increasingly diminished political leaders has something else aside from gas prices, the weather, climate protesters and migrants to complain about.

The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reached for the diversion like a drowning man clutches for a straw.

Standards Committee chairman Chris Bryant noted that the PM was keener to call Australia to account than he was to deliver a major NHS statement in parliament or attend the next two sessions of prime minister’s questions.

“For two rule-breaking moments you chose not to be in parliament but yesterday you opined on the rules of cricket,” Bryant said.

“I’m very happy to talk about the rules of cricket, as you mentioned,” Sunak said.

“But not about rule-breaking in parliament,” Bryant responded.

Political sketch columnist Marina Hyde was at her hilarious best in appraising the incidents at Lord’s and the outcry that followed.

“For now, it must be hard for outsiders not to be struck by anything other than a sense of unwitting English smallness that stretches from the inner sanctum of Lord’s to Downing Street and beyond,” Hyde wrote.

“Sunday’s scenes were the kind of unedifying thing some of those aggressive members prefer to think only happens in all the sports on which they look down, or during prime minister’s questions. The footage from the staircase and the Long Room show a large crowd so entitled and gripped by some fundamentalist belief in their own superior decency that they behaved in this way even though they knew the TV cameras were on them …

“In the end, perhaps these deflections are easier than confronting the reality and debunking some of the less helpful stories a certain section of England likes to tell about itself.

“Much easier to just order another stiff one, and raise the old toast: “My country, right or wrong!”

Too right, old girl.