England captain Ben Stokes commented on the contentious stumping of Jonny Bairstow after Australia won the second Ashes Test by 43 runs to lead the hosts 2-0 in the series. He said that if he were Australia, he would have "had a think about Spirt of Cricket" before making the decision to take Bairstow out of the game.
Just before lunch on the fifth day of the Ashes Test at Lord's, Bairstow was out by a stumping. At that point, England needed 178 runs to win and had lost five wickets. In order to get to his partner Stokes, who was at the non-striker's end, Bairstow dove beneath a short ball from Cameron Green, scraped the crease, and then started to move.
Prior to Bairstow leaving the crease, Australia wicketkeeper Alex Carey grabbed the ball and quickly threw it towards the striker's end's stumps. There was initially confusion when TV umpire Marais Erasmus received the verdict from umpires Ahsan Raza and Chris Gaffaney from upstairs. Bairstow's destiny was decided by the replays. However, the Australians' refusal to withdraw their appeal infuriated the home crowd and the England players.
Ben Stokes concedes he would not win the way Australia did:
When asked about the Bairstow stumping, Stokes revealed that he would have put more pressure on the umpires about the correctness of the decision. He said in the post-match presentation.
"I am not disrupting the fact it is out because it is out. If the shoe was on the other foot, I would have put more pressure on the umpires and asked whether they had called over and had a deep think about the whole spirit of the game and would I want to do something like that. For Australia, it was the match-winning moment. Would I want to win a game in that manner? The answer for me is no."
Ben Stokes optimistic of winning series 3-2:
Despite England being 2-0 down, Stokes took inspiration from their past results and said:
"Tough one to swallow, to get so close. We're 2-0 down but we've won 3-0 against NZ, 3-0 against Pakistan, so we know we can do it."
Only the Australian team of 1936–37 has won the series after being 0-2 down.
