'Bairstow was casual and careless, Carey was just being sharp': David Gower on controversial stumping at Lord's

One of the main highlights in what has been a riveting 2023 Men’s Ashes so far would no doubt be the controversial Jonny Bairstow stumping by Australian wicket-keeper Alex Carey in the second Test.

While many a former England cricketer and fan slammed Australia for violating the ‘Spirit of Cricket’, former England captain David Gower believes that it was simply a case of Bairstow being casual and careless while Carey was sharp behind the stumps.

“I’m of the opinion that Jonny Bairstow, sadly, was casual and careless. If you just think about it for a moment, and I’m sure he would have thought about it constantly, the assumption he made was not an assumption you should make in the midst of an Ashes Test match," Gower told Betway in an interview.

The stumping in question came to pass on Day 5 of the second Test at Lord’s. England, chasing 371, were looking comfortable at 193/5. After Bairstow ducked a short ball from Cameron Green at the end of his over, he scratched the pitch and left his crease, apparently assuming the ball to be dead by then.

However, behind the wickets, Carey took a low-armed shot at stumps as soon as Bairstow set out of the crease, leaving the English batter dumbfounded as he looked back at dislodged stumps.

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“Yes, the ball had gone into the keeper’s hands, but that little tap of the toe as if to say, ‘I’m in, I can do what I want now,’ was naive, I’m afraid. All he had to do was just look behind him for a moment,” Gower said about the sequence of the incident.

The stumping had triggered the spectators at Lord’s. They booed the Aussies as Bairstow walked out. Some even chanted, “Same old Aussies always cheating.”

Australia’s Usman Khawaja and David Warner were even verbally abused by some MCC members in the Lord’s Long Room at Lunch afterwards. Cricket Australia also alleged physical contact and asked the MCC management for an investigation in the matter.

He disagreed with those questioning the morality of Carey’s action. He instead found Carey to have an amazing presence of mind.

“As far as I’m concerned, Carey was just being sharp. There was nothing underhand about what Carey did — apart from the throw, which was spot on — it was just the sharpness of thinking,” he said.

However, his critical take on the stumping doesn’t mean that he was in favour of replacing Bairstow with Ben Foakes, the England favourite behind-the-wickets man in the Ben Stokes–Brendon McCullum era. In fact, he believed Faokes glove work was played up by some.

“Ben Foakes is a much better keeper, for sure,” he said. “The way he keeps wicket is actually a visual delight. But there’s a tendency to make him into some sort of demigod as a keeper. The reality is that even Foakes will drop the oddball. He’ll do it beautifully, but he will drop the oddball. Everyone is capable of mistakes.”