The final day of the second Ashes Test at Lord’s is filled with drama thanks to Ben Stokes, a rarely seen run-out of Jonny Bairstow and “disappointing” abuse from the Lord’s members.
- How it ended: Check out our wrap and live blog of a dramatic day five
- Scorecard: Take a look at the full card from the second Test
Here are five big moments from the final day of the Lord’s Test.
1. Jonny Bairstow’s brain-fade kicks off drama
After removing not-out batter Ben Duckett with a brilliant leaping catch for the first wicket of the day, Australia wicketkeeper Alex Carey was at the heart of the next wicket to fall as well, albeit in somewhat controversial circumstances.
Bairstow ducked under a bouncer from Cameron Green to end his first over back in the attack.
He looked back, scratched his guard, and then walked out of his crease, believing the over was finished. The thing is, it hadn’t been called dead by the umpires, and Carey had already leaped into action.
The Aussie wicketkeeper had thrown the ball at the stumps as Bairstow walked, knocking them down and instantly appealing.
Bairstow looked bemused, then angry as the boos rang around the ground.
England captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum suggested it wasn’t in the “spirit of the game”, but it was certainly within the rules and Bairstow, reluctantly, had to go.
Former England captain Michael Atherton described it as a “dozy bit of cricket” from England’s wicketkeeper on the Sky Sports coverage, but that did little to placate a livid Lord’s crowd.
Booing continued, as did the chants of “cheating” from the England crowd (“Cheating” was even a top trend on Twitter in a matter of minutes), lending a hostile tint to proceedings that does not bode well for the rest of the series.
2. Ben Stokes takes off
With all recognised batters back in the sheds, Ben Stokes was batting with England’s lengthy tail.
Having resumed on 29 from 66 balls, Stokes had progressed to 62 off 126 balls by the time Bairstow was dismissed.
Stokes had his back against the wall — we all know what happens next. By lunch five overs later he was 108 off 147 after smacking three consecutive sixes off Cameron Green to bring up the milestone, barely celebrating the personal milestone with laser-like focus on the team goal.
The rest of Lord’s was losing its collective mind,
Lunch couldn’t come soon enough for Australia, but when it did Stokes had reached 108 off 147 balls, contributing 46 to a fifty-run partnership with Stuart Broad, who had added 1.
Stokes fell short of pulling off another miracle that would have eclipsed his Headingley performance from four years ago, but his 155 that made the impossible seem briefly inevitable will long be remembered by all who witnessed it.
3. Players clash with members in the Long Room
The walk through the Long Room at Lord’s is a unique feature of the ground that hearkens back to a mythical time when the game was played by … well … lords.
Whether going out to bat, coming back in after a dismissal, seeking shelter from a rain delay or jogging off at stumps, players from both teams walk through an ornate room brimming with more than a century of history while members of the Marylebone Cricket Club applaud politely. Usually.
Just before lunch on day five, Bairstow’s dismissal and pantomime buffoonery from Stuart Broad worked the often sedate Lord’s crowd into a lather of boos and chants of “Same old Aussies, always cheating”.
So focused were they on slating the Aussies that they only briefly paused to recognise Stokes’s masterful century, and were booing even as he and Broad crossed the boundary rope.
It got uglier inside the Long Room, with the Australian players weathering plenty of barbs from close range, but one member prompted Usman Khawaja to stop in his tracks and get even closer.
Security got between them, but another member drew the ire of the usually laconic Khawaja as he was exiting the room, with the opener pointing the second man out to security while David Warner was also in a light scrum with security and a third man.
Khawaja told Channel Nine after the fact that he was surprised and disappointed to hear the abuse he and his teammates were receiving.
“Some of the stuff coming out of the members’ mouths was really disappointing,” he said.
“I wasn’t going to stand by and cop it. A few of them were throwing out some pretty big allegations.
“I was like ‘well, it’s your membership’ so I was just pointing them out [to security].
“It’s pretty disrespectful, I expect more from the members.”
Former England captain Eoin Morgan, who has called Lord’s home as a Middlesex man for 20 years, said he had “never seen scenes like that” at the so-called Home of Cricket.
“Particularly in the Long Room, nevermind all the way around the ground,” Morgan said on Sky Sports at lunch.
“There’s a huge sense of frustration but I can’t understand why; it’s complete naivety around what’s happened with Jonny Bairstow’s dismissal.”
Lord’s said no members were ejected and Cricket Australia asked for an investigation into what was said and to who.
4. Steve Smith drops it in another Headingley parallel
The second ball after lunch was launched over long-on for six in perhaps the cleanest strike of the day up to that point, and it seemed Josh Hazlewood was destined to go the journey like Green did earlier in the day.
But two balls later, Stokes was dead to rights. He’d sliced a short ball seemingly straight down the throat of Steve Smith at deep square leg.
Four years earlier, Stokes’s innings should have ended in similar fashion but Marcus Harris made a meal of it at deep backward point.
But this time, Australia had one of the best fielders in world cricket under the ball. Surely it wouldn’t, couldn’t, happen again.
Alas, it did.
Smith made a meal of the grab, bobbling it as he ran in off the rope and trying hopelessly to catch the rebound behind his back.
Did the moment get to him? Was he worrying about how he would land to avoid another Mitchell Starc situation? We may never know, but it surely didn’t help that a chance off Stuart Broad’s bat fell just out of reach a few balls later.
After Stokes eventually fell, 41 runs and a million heart palpitations later, Smith made some amends with a fine grab in the deep to get rid of Ollie Robinson.
5. Aussies recognise greatness
When Stokes eventually miscued a shot into the gloves of Alex Carey, the extent of his despondency was matched by the glee of the Australians. It really was the winning moment, even with three wickets left to take before it was confirmed.
But some of his foes couldn’t let him leave the field of play without congratulating the man who nearly ripped their hearts out again.
En route to the celebratory huddle, Smith stopped off at the crease where Stokes remained stationary.
He put his arm around him, patted him on the shoulder and shared some words, although it didn’t look like Stokes was ready or capable of hearing them.
As he made his way down the pitch, opposing captain Pat Cummins jogged after him and reached out to pat him on the back, but Stokes was, fittingly, just out of reach.
Usman Khawaja also gave him a brief embrace a bit further into his journey off the field, and it seemed this one registered and was at least somewhat appreciated.
Loading