Bairstow Controversy: Spirit of the Game, or all out War.
I have some sympathy for Johnny Bairstow and the England team but, to be honest, Bairstow was a bit naive here. I have watched the video over and over and Carey receives the ball after Bairstow ducks under the short ball and immediately throws it at the stumps. There is no delay or attempted trickery. Bairstow had no right to assume at that stage the ball was dead. It wasn't, and the umpires were quite correct to give him out. He simply went walkabout at a crucial time in a test match and that let the Aussies back into the game. Is this in the "spirit of the game"? No, probably not, in the good old "that's not cricket" days, but the spirit of the game disappeared long ago. Was the body line series of 1932 in the spirit? Did Clive Lloyd's Windies side think about the spirit as they swept all before them with a mixture of hostility and in your face challenges? We have had under-arm bowling, Mankads and all manner of controversies over the last century of