Out-standing: Captain Cool Pat Cummins stands by call

Pat Cummins remains sanguine about the Jonny Bairstow stumping – indeed, he can even see an up side to the controversy. Rishi Sunak, meanwhile, says it wasn’t in the spirit of the game.

The tension shows as the two Test skippers Ben Stokes, left, and Pat Cummins wait for the post-match presentations at Lord’s. Picture: Getty Images

Ben Stokes may have questioned Pat Cummins’ integrity after the loss at the Ashes, the MCC members may have turned feral, and coach Brendon McCullum might say he doesn’t fancy sharing a beer with the opposition, but the Australian captain remains sanguine – indeed, he can even see an up side to the controversy.

Cummins rejected allegations they had breached the spirit of cricket when Jonny Bairstow was stumped by Alex Carey on the last day after the visitors had ­observed his habit of wandering from the crease.

The captain says the abuse his side received will unite them further ahead of the third Test, and dismissed suggestions by Stokes that he would not have gone through with the appeal for a stumping. “You see Jonny do it all the time, he did it day one to Davey Warner,” Cummins said of the stumping on the last day. “He did it 2019 to Steve (Smith).

“It seems like every Ashes has some drama to it. Things get stoked up half way through, if anything it feels like we’ve got two old rivals playing against each other. Is it going to change anything? I don’t thinks so, we are still amicable.

Australia's Alex Carey (centre) celebrates the run out of England's Jonny Bairstow

“Being up 2-0 is something we should be really proud of as a group,” he added.

Cummins said the MCC members had been “quite aggressive and abusive”, but that the club had apologised.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has also weighed into the controversy, with his official spokesman on Monday saying: “The Prime Minister agrees with (England captain) Ben Stokes. He said he simply wouldn’t want to win a game in the manner Australia did.”

Asked whether Mr Sunak thought the spirit of the game had been breached, the spokesman replied: “Yes.”

Having confronted a number of abusive members of Britain’s upper classes as he made his way through the Long Room to the dressing room, a smiling Usman Khawaja turned to a braying mob of well-dressed men on the stairwell chanting “cheats, cheats, cheats” and said: “Stay civilised, guys.”

Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom reacts during day four of the Ashes 2nd Test match between England and Australia at Lord's Cricket Ground.

There’s little chance of that. The Ashes has taken an ugly and unfriendly turn.

Just 24 hours earlier, the MCC put out a clarification of its own laws to remind any aggrieved Australian fans that the Mitchell Starc catch was not technically a catch. And it was not.

Now they were putting out fires and suspending members who had abused, tripped and jostled Australian players for, well, following those very same laws.

England had lost the Test, and its supporters had lost their minds – if not their moral compass. Three members were suspended.

“They were pretty hostile, the men and women, in their ties and jackets,” Cummins said.

Khawaja took it on himself to defend his teammates in the ­moment. “Some of the stuff that was coming out of the members’ mouths is really disappointing and I wasn’t just going to stand by and cop it, so I just talked to a few of them,” he said.

“A few of them were throwing out some pretty big allegations and I just called them up on it and they kept going, and I was like, well, this is your membership here. I’m just pointing them out.

“It’s pretty disrespectful, to be honest. I just expect a lot better.”

England don’t like to lose. Having crashed to 4-0 defeat in the last Ashes contest, they replaced captain, coach and everything that moved.

England’s Jonny Bairstow is stumped by Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey at Lord’s.

Importing a Kiwi, McCullum to coach, and appointing a tattooed Kiwi born street fighter as captain, they promised a new way and seemed rather chuffed with its progress, at least up until the time they started losing this series.

Some 40 odd years back when the MCC members became so frustrated by delays to play that they tossed their seat cushions onto the playing surface, Times correspondent John Woodcock was moved to observe it was “the end of civilisation as we know it”.

For all the England cricket sides boasts of playing cricket in a new, better spirit, the truth is that Ol’ Blighty’s cricket team and even its most well-heeled supporters are very happy to cite (their) rules when it suits them and have a grand old sook when they do not.

Australian coach Andrew McDonald was underwhelmed to be told things had turned so bad that McCullum was not going to share a drink with the opposition.

“I haven’t spoken to him. I’ve heard that comment for the first time, and I’m somewhat disappointed by that,” McDonald said.

McCullum and Stokes both questioned the spirit with which Australia play the game, while McDonald claimed the run-out was a legitimate dismissal.

Bearing a black eye from a fielding incident and a smile from the knowledge that his side is now 2-0 up and one win from doing what no Australian side has since Steve Waugh’s in 2001, Cummins stayed calm in the storm. As England’s commentators bin-dived into incidents past to suggest the colonials had little regard for the spirit of cricket, Cummins remained serene.

The UK Sun's Ashes coverage.

“We’ve all played a lot of cricket,” he said. “The spirit of cricket is really important. I think the way we’ve gone about it over the past couple of years has been fantastic, absolutely fantastic, and we should be really proud.”

When one enraged English reporter asked if we could now expect underarm bowling, the Australian captain smiled and said it depended how fast he wickets were.

McDonald applauded his outfit which had been alert to Bairstow’s careless wandering from the crease, and said they would do it again.

“There’s no doubt when a player is leaving their crease or leaving their ground at certain periods of time that you take that opportunity,” McDonald said. “I think Pat relayed that in the after-match that there was some conversation around Jonny leaving the crease and Alex Carey took that opportunity and the ball’s still live in our minds.”

Back in Australia, the stumping was all the talk around cricket clubs on Monday. And as every budding star knows, if the ball is live and you step out of the crease, you’re fair game.

“I think it’s fair and square,” said 12-year-old Ashkan Saini from Hillside in NSW.

“The ball was still alive when he got out of his crease after ducking. The umpire hadn’t called that it was ‘over’ or ‘ball’ … So I reckon that was the right out to give.”

The young opener from the South Eastern Junior Cricket Association was practising batting with his dad in Sydney’s south, something they do about three times a week to prepare for his entrance into the local representative team.

Ashkan doesn’t think the Australians were cheating. And his father Deepak, who goes for Australia unless they’re playing India, agrees: “It’s a very simple rule, it’s not made by me – it’s in the MCC rule book.”

Additional reporting: Joanna Panagopoulos, Jacquelin Magnay