‘I haven’t got too many close friends in that team’: Alex Carey opens up on Ashes abuse

Strolling anonymously around the Queenstown waterfront with wife Eloise and children Louis and Clementine a couple of months ago, Alex Carey looked at peace.

Partly, this was because Carey had come through a difficult nine months by sculpting his best Test innings to help Australia seal a fourth innings chase in Christchurch a few days before.

Alex Carey can now say he enjoyed the 2023 Ashes series, though he learned it is impossible to please everyone.Credit: Ben Searcy

But it was also because, in New Zealand’s luxury escape capital, the worries about Carey and his family getting abused, threatened or heckled by English fans, as was the case all the way through the final three Tests of the Ashes, had well and truly subsided.

“That was good,” Carey said. “It’s nice as well to come home and do the school drop-offs and some washing and all the things I’ve missed out on for quite a bit of time. But it was hectic, a massive couple of years. It was nice to decompress.”

At times in England, following his stumping of Jonny Bairstow on a frenetic final day of the Lord’s Test, Carey was reluctant to venture out. Public train journeys earlier in the tour, as one example, became team bus trips. Why?

Carey’s social media was flooded with abusive messages and even a death threat: ridiculous extremes of behaviour from those who felt Bairstow’s dismissal had not been fair game. On the Amazon Prime documentary that retells the tale of the 2023 Ashes and is released on Friday, Steve Smith says he worried about the effect of it all on Carey, having ridden out a rather different storm in 2018.

“I could sense he wasn’t quite right mentally and I can understand it,” Smith said. “So yeah I was worried about him and his wellbeing.”

For his part, Carey told the filmmakers that he “likes to be liked”.

Looking back now, Carey admits it is a part of his persona that he has had to move past: the aftermath of the Lord’s Test made him aware in no uncertain terms that it is impossible to keep everyone happy at all times.

“I think I’ve now almost grown out of that,” Carey said. “You can’t control what people can think about you and say about you, and in the end the decision was made; it was out.

Pat Cummins teamed up with Alex Carey to lead Australia to another Test series win in New Zealand.Credit: Photosport via AP

“You ask yourself the question, can you change it, no, would you do anything differently, no. People are allowed to have their opinions and you can’t control them.

“So being actually part of it over there, seeing the emotion that came out of it, it’s definitely what you play sport for, and I wouldn’t change anything. I look back on it and recognise how amazing the series was.”

Carey and captain Pat Cummins had noticed beforehand that Bairstow appeared quite oblivious to where the crease was while he was batting and the ball was still live. The wicketkeeper believes the foresight required to pick up on that – and the skill to throw the stumps down while wearing a keeping glove – was lost in the noise.

“Having that tactical awareness out in the middle is a part of sport,” he said. “It was a spread field, but there were a few guys in the ring as well to pick up on it, enough to signal it and execute it as well, which is something that’s definitely been lost in it all. But for us, once it was given out, we celebrated, we were pretty pleased with it.

“Once the stumping took place, the environment changed, and that was probably half an hour before lunch of being out there and absorbing what was coming our way. Then walking up the stairs and seeing a place that was pretty unrecognisable compared to every other time we’ve been there.

“You ask yourself the question, ‘Was it against the laws, who owns the spirit of cricket textbook?’ And certain things just come out after copping it for 30 minutes as a group, you just want to decompress.”

As for the social media threats that came the way of Carey and his family, the 32-year-old now concedes he was left somewhat fearful of those words being replicated by someone walking down the street towards him. Fortunately, that did not turn out to be the case, beyond the terrace taunts of spectators.

“There was nothing too negative that came my way in public,” he said. “I think you maybe overthink it as well, you think the worst [might happen]. But all you’re doing is trying your best to play sport and find ways to win within the laws of the game.

“Most sportspeople at times will have negative comments come their way. I probably had a few more [than usual] during the Ashes, and I think it’s more around protection of your family. If there’s something there, you want to read it, but you want to stay away from it and just make sure we had enough space from playing cricket.

“Having them over there was a great distraction for me, to spend time with them. There were a few words that I wouldn’t like Louis to hear at a cricket ground, but they come your way from the Barmy Army, and that’s all a part of it as well.”

Carey and Bairstow shook hands but did not speak in the aftermath of Australia’s defeat of England in a World Cup match in November. And aside from Ollie Robinson, with whom he played at Sussex, Carey did not debrief the Ashes with England.

“I haven’t,” Carey concluded, “got too many close friends in that team.”

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