Australian batting firebrand Travis Head has revealed that England wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow said he would happily run him out in the first Test the same way Alex Carey stumped Bairstow himself at Lord’s.
TRAVIS HEAD REVEALS JONNY BAIRSTOW’S CLAIM THAT WOULD PULL AN ALEX CAREY:
“Ben [Stokes] was just wanting to find out if it was called over, and Jonny wasn’t too pleased,” Head said on Willow Talk.
“And I sort of reminded Jonny last week I walked out of my crease at Edgbaston at the end of an over, and the ball got whipped in, and I quickly whipped my bat back and questioned Jonny on whether he would take the stumps, and he said, ‘Bloody oath I would’, and ran off.”
“I sort of reminded him that ‘remember last week when you said you’d do… exactly the same thing?’.
“So whether he remembers saying that or not, but two days before he also tried to throw Marnus’s stumps down.”
Carey now infamously stumped Bairstow on day 5 of the Lord’s Test, when the England keeper strolled out of his crease after ducking a Cam Green bumper.
The Aussie keeper threw the ball back towards the stumps as soon as he received it, breaking the wicket shortly after Bairstow left his crease.
The third umpire deemed the ball was not dead, and thus Bairstow had no choice but to leave.
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Head underlined that there was no underhandedness in the play.
“There was no sneakiness about it, Kez (Carey) grabbed it and threw it straight away,” he said.
“There’s been some in the past where they held the ball and waited for a someone to lift a foot, and held on to it and waited.
“This was just purely in the same, I guess, play, and I think that was the main part about it, is it wasn’t sneaky, it was done pretty quickly and had left Kez’s hands pretty quickly.”
MORE ON THE JONNY BAIRSTOW INCIDENT FROM WILLOW TALK:
Head reiterated that there was no underhandedness in the play.
“There was no sneakiness about it, Kez (Carey) grabbed it and threw it straight away,” he said.
“There’s been some in the past where they held the ball and waited for a someone to lift a foot, and held on to it and waited.
“This was just purely in the same, I guess, play, and I think that was the main part about it, is it wasn’t sneaky, it was done pretty quickly and had left Kez’s hands pretty quickly.”
Nevertheless the incident enraged the English players and crowd, with Ben Stokes using the righteous fury to power him to a brutal 155 in the ultimately futile chase of 371.
The crowd fumed for the rest of the day, with the Aussies copping raucous booing and even the MCC members in the Long Room lining them up for abuse as they went to lunch.
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Head went on to explain that he’s seen similar incidents happen before, including in a Sheffiled Shield game.
“I’ve seen it a few times,” he said.
“I remember Tommy Cooper getting done at the SCG a fair while ago, Nev [Peter Nevill] threw the stumps down on him.
“We’ve seen Jonny try and do it a couple of days just before that, and again, coming out and saying that they may or may not have upheld their appeals, the slate’s never as clean as you think it is… there’s been prime examples of a lot of people doing it over the years.”
Head also discussed the atmosphere during and after the incident, the Long Room abuse, and of course how Australia managed to pull off the win and go 2-0 up in the Ashes.
Listen to the full post-Lord’s episode of Willow Talk with Travis Head here:
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