The spirit of winning

For an empire built on theft and invasion, the idea of being lectured about the “spirit of the game” rings a little hollow, and yet that’s where we stand after a particularly spiteful second Ashes Test at Lord’s, the “home” of cricket.

Jonny Bairstow was punished, rightfully under the pesky laws of the game, for meandering out of the safety of his crease while the ball was still live, falling victim to a ruthless and ingenious bit of wicket keeping by Alex Carey, who flung the stumps down mere microseconds after collecting a Cameron Green bouncer.

Bairstow, bound by misguided ideals of self-governance, had decided the ball was dead.

It was a ploy born out of repetition, conniving scheming and a bit of foreshadowing from Carey, who has proven countless times in this Test alone that his glovemanship is surpassed only by his cerebral reading of the scenario.

Consider the dismissal of Ben Duckett in the second innings. Josh Hazlewood said after the fact that it was likely due to Carey just being able to see the ball better, but Carey, aware of Australia’s (admittedly tedious) short ball philosophy and plan to get Duckett out hooking, shifted to the leg side, allowing himself to be in prime position to snare an easy catch off the gloves of Duckett, a catch made much more unlikely had he started in the conventional position.

Bairstow’s dismissal was the encore to that first act of intelligence, a sharp reading of the game concocted and formed throughout the over, as Bairstow constantly wandered roughly in the vicinity of the crease.

Carey, using Bairstow’s routine and naivety against him, launched his offensive while Bairstow was still in his crease. As though programmed by motion sensors, Bairstow, not even bothering to look behind him, because he was in charge of the situation, declared the ball dead in his mind and went walkabout, blissfully unaware at the airborne cherry hurtling for his middle stump.

Bounded by the laws of the game, those very same laws the custodians of Lord’s Cricket Ground, the Marylebone Cricket Club, so famously and proudly maintain, Bairstow had to tell his story walking.

Spirit of the game is a quirk not unique to cricket, but its influence on the game’s governance and discourse far surpasses any other sport I have a passing interest in.

“Bairstow wasn’t attempting to run.”

No, he wasn’t, and that’s why it’s stumped. Players don’t mean to hit the ball to a fielder or leave a ball that hits the stumps. It happens.

Any argument that leads off with “by the letter of the law it was out but…” can be left at the door. A generation raised on participation ribbons will grow up to think winning isn’t important as long as you Bazball the shit out of some cricket balls.

“Imagine if that was Carey being stumped out by Bairstow, how would you feel then?”

I don’t know if you’ve been following Australian cricket in the last 15 years, but there’s a very love-hate relationship between the public and the national team. Tall poppy syndrome runs riot in this country.

The media and public would have revelled in the memes and insults launched at Carey. After all, there was no sympathy when he absent mindedly walked into a pool in Karachi.

If Carey had been caught being so dozy, there’d be headlines calling for Josh Inglis or Jimmy Peirson by 8am the next morning.

And as for McCullum saying he won’t be having a beer with us for a while, the idea of having a drink with the coach of the English cricket team is fundamentally horrid and morally repellent, so no great loss there.

Now I’m not going to sit here and rattle off every other similar incident that skirts around the subjective and intangible “spirit” of cricket, committed by the likes of Stuart Broad or Ollie Pope or Brendon McCullum or even Bairstow himself, because that would be not only a waste of my bandwidth, but redundant given the countless videos and articles already in circulation gleefully crowing about the hypocrisy of the English.

I will take a moment to address Bairstow attempting similar to Marnus Labuschagne in the first innings though. I’m actually going to jump to Bairstow’s defence on this one. The throw was so wide it was closer to Edgbaston than the cut strip at Lord’s that I can’t in good faith call it a genuine attempt at a long range stumping.

Bairstow, cheeks burning from embarrassment and rage, choking back the spit as he robotically conducted the post game handshakes through gritted teeth, hid behind Ben Stokes and McCullum, who raised their dreamcatchers and scrapbooks and spoke of the virtues of friendship and butterflies and rainbows.

I’d be mad too if I’d been thoroughly outplayed and emasculated by my opposite keeper, and not for the first time either (Ben Foakes anyone?).

The same dismissal that is attempted by thousands of park cricket battlers avoiding their families by slowly roasting in the afternoon sun every weekend to an audience of tens is apparently too lowbrow for Test cricket.

There’s no spirit of the game when someone launches a half tracker into the carpark and shatters the windscreen of a 2011 Getz in the process.

Spirit of the game is a trope recycled by the losers, a validation to make their own imperfections appear less so, electrical tape over the facade if you will, because its better to take the moral high ground and sink with the ship rather than admit fault and plan to grow.

Spirit of the game isn’t a validation for the scenes in the Long Room as the teams broke for lunch, scenes that made Usman Khawaja and David Warner visibly uncomfortable, scenes that prompted a formal apology from the MCC and a scathing denouncement from Khawaja after play.

The Long Room, full of the oldest money in the world, full of financiers and oil barons and whatever else the one percent do, people who would rather go to the cricket in the height of (the English) summer in a suit and tie rather than a Lowes Hawaiian shirt and board shorts, turned from a docile tea room into a spitting hornet’s nest.

Scenes that made even the most English in the broadcast booth pause in shock.

“Lord’s isn’t usually like this, maybe it’s because people that normally don’t come to Lord’s came today.”

A thinly veiled shot at the world order, how dare the ruffians come to the king’s court.

Spirit of the game exists, it’s true, but not to bend the laws of the game to suit your agendas.

Take Nathan Lyon, there’s true spirit of the game.

Barely able to walk, the obituaries written, Lyon hobbled down the neverending stairs from the dressing room, taking shelter in the Long Room so as not to be timed out, awaiting his turn as Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc batted.

Everyone thought he was done, the expectation that Australia would bat 10 deep following Lyon’s “significant” calf injury.

Lyon, in the face of the pearl clutching that followed, as though he had been marched out of the rooms at gunpoint by Pat Cummins and forced to pad up, made what would prove to be an invaluable four runs, sharing a stand of 15 with Starc.

Lyon, on one leg, swinging like the rustiest gate imaginable, managed to outscore two of England’s top three batsmen, and broke even with Harry Brook too.

That’s spirit of the game.

England can crow all they like about the psychology of the sport and being entertaining and feeling like they won even when they, you know, didn’t.

Australia are up 2-0 in the Ashes, by virtue of actually playing better cricket, what a novel concept.

Not to say the Aussies are without fault. The bowling and tactics employed on the final day were uninspiring, boring to watch, and only serving to help rally an already frenzied army of toffs into sheer delirium as visions of a 370 run chase drew closer to reality.

It was clear the attack missed Lyon, if nothing else to spell the quicks, whom all rapidly tired from the constant short pitched nonsense.

But the time for criticism is later. For now, it’s time to bask in the glow of yet another famous Test victory and “lord” it over the mother country.

I’ll leave the final word to Cummins.

“The spirit of cricket is really important. I think the way we’ve gone about it over the last couple of years has been fantastic, absolutely fantastic, and we should be really proud as a group.”

On to Headingley.