What Australia did to Jonny Bairstow WASN’T cheating – but winning that way is even worse than losing
ONE of the most infamous villains in sporting history is a man named Trevor Chappell.
He was one of three brothers who all played cricket for Australia, with his older siblings Ian and Greg both captaining their country.
Trevor wasn’t as good as them but would still have been remembered as a fine international-level sportsman had it not been for a moment of madness in 1981 when he was playing for Australia against New Zealand in a one-day tournament.
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With one ball left, New Zealand wanted six runs to win, so Australia’s skipper Greg Chappell ordered his younger brother to bowl underarm to prevent any chance of losing the match.
Trevor duly rolled the ball along the ground to disgusted Kiwi batsman Brian McKechnie who blocked it and threw his bat away in rage.
Australia’s actions were instantly condemned, even by Ian Chappell who was commentating on TV at the time and exclaimed, ‘No, Greg, no, you can’t do that!’
His co-commentator, the iconic Richie Benaud, branded it ‘disgraceful’ and ‘one of the worst things I’ve ever seen done on a cricket field.’
Even politicians got involved with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Robert Muldoon calling it ‘an act of true cowardice and I consider it appropriate that the Australian team were wearing yellow.’
I concur. It was repulsive. But here’s the rub: what Australia did that day was perfectly within the laws of the game at the time.
It wasn’t ‘cheating’, it was just not ‘in the spirit of the game.’
However, that didn’t save Trevor Chappell from becoming one of the most reviled people to ever play sport, because if there’s one thing sports fans hate even more than losing, it’s bad sportsmanship.
I thought of him yesterday when I watched England’s Jonny Bairstow be given out after Australian wicket-keeper Alex Carey threw down his stumps as he walked out of his crease to speak to Ben Stokes at the end of an over, believing the ball was dead.
What Carey did, like Trevor Chappell, was perfectly within the laws of cricket.
But it was also entirely against the spirit of the game.
Everyone, including every member of the Australian team, knew Bairstow wasn’t trying to gain any advantage.
So, the right thing to do was for Australia’s captain Pat Cummins to call Bairstow back, just as other past captains like India’s MS Dhoni have done in similar situations.
But instead, Cummins and the rest of the gleeful Aussies celebrated like they’d won the lottery, sparking fury from the packed crowd and very unusually, from MCC members inside the hallowed Lord’s pavilion.
Some of the members’ behaviour was disgracefully abusive and I make no apology for those idiots screaming ‘CHEATS!’ at the Aussies.
Not least because they didn’t actually cheat unlike a few years ago when they did cheat by using sandpaper to manipulate the ball.
But the Aussies did go against the spirit of the game, and in the process, did a massive disservice to themselves, their country, and their sport.
As former Australian star Brad Hogg told TalkSport: ‘You don’t want to win a Test match by taking cheap wickets like that.’
Ben Stokes made it clear he wouldn’t have done it and I believe him.
‘It is out,’ he said. ‘But would I want to win a game in that manner? The answer for me is no.’
To which cricket superfan Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman commented: ‘The Prime Minister agrees with Ben Stokes who said he simply wouldn’t want to win a game in the manner Australia did.’
I’m with them.
Where’s the glory in winning at sport if you abandon honour and integrity?
It’s hard to define exactly what constitutes ‘the spirit of the game’ but most sports fans know when they see it abused.
It’s why Diego Maradona, genius though he was, will always be thought of as a cheat by England football fans for his ‘Hand of God’ goal against us in the World Cup.
And by contrast, why Paolo Di Canio will always be revered for his astounding sportsmanship when he was playing for West Ham and had an easy tap-in for a winner but refused to shoot because Everton’s goalkeeper was lying injured.
Instead, Di Canio caught the ball in his hands, and became a hero.
I’d feel the exact same way about this Bairstow debacle if it was England who were the culprits.
I was at the Oval in 2008 when we ran out a New Zealand player after he accidentally collided with our bowler – and I joined condemnation of our dismal failure to bring him back. (The captain Paul Collingwood later apologised)
I was also at Arsenal’s old ground Highbury for our 1999 FA Cup game against Sheffield United where their goalkeeper kicked the ball into touch so one of their other players could be treated for injury.
On the restart, Ray Parlour threw the ball back towards United’s end, only for his teammate Kanu to burst through, take the ball and cross it for Marc Overmars to score.
It was a shameful moment that most Arsenal fans felt noisily uncomfortable about. I was so outraged I even phoned a BBC radio show after the game to express my anger.
Fortunately, manager Arsene Wenger agreed, and offered to replay the fixture.
I was proud of my club’s response, because ultimately, I didn’t want us to win that way.
And for all their predictable ‘stop blubbing you big pommy babies’ rhetoric, I don’t believe most Australians will be feeling proud of what their team did to Jonny Bairstow.
My late, great Aussie friend Shane Warne, who played his cricket hard but fair, had a phrase for this kind of sharp practice.
He’d have called it ‘pretty ordinary.’
And for Warnie, there was nothing worse in the world than for sportsmen to show ‘pretty ordinary’ bad sportsmanship.
He’s right – there isn’t.
It’s even worse than losing.