Credit: Twitter
During the final day of the second Ashes Test match at Lord’s in London, Alex Carey inflicted a controversial run out of Jonny Bairstow to change the complexion of the contest. This incident was really helpful for Australia to defeat England by 43 runs to attain a 2-0 lead in the five-match Ashes Test series.
Jonny Bairstow, the middle-order batter, was seemingly strolling away from the crease after ducking the bouncer from Cameron Green in the 52nd over of the England innings, when the Australian wicket-keeper Alex Carey gently threw the ball to bring the stumps down. The third-umpire Marais Erasmus had to make a decision on the play, who gave the English batter his marching orders back to the pavilion to the chorus of boos from the home fans.
Shortly afterward, a cricket fan tagged Ravichandran Ashwin in a tweet to call out the people who were lauding Alex Carey on getting rid of Jonny Bairstow. He questioned the double standards of the same people who had earlier blasted the Indian player for running out non-strikers for leaving the crease, the dismissal known in the cricketing circles as the “Mankad.”
Later on, Ravichandran Ashwin noticed the tweet from the cricket fan to make his point about comparisons being drawn between the Jonny Bairstow run out and the so-called “Mankad” dismissal. He applauded the game smarts of Alex Carey indirectly, while stating that this moment shouldn’t be about unfair play or spirit of the game talk.
The tweet from the premier off-spinner from Team India read, “We must get one fact loud and clear. The keeper would never have a dip at the stumps from that far out in a test match unless he or his team have noticed a pattern of the batter leaving his crease after leaving a ball like Bairstow did. We must applaud the game smarts of the individual rather than skewing it towards unfair play or the spirit of the game.”
It was during IPL 2019, when Ravichandran Ashwin, who was captaining Punjab Kings, had run out Jos Buttler, who was playing for Rajasthan Royals, at the non-striker’s end for leaving the crease. Since then, the cricketing world has been divided in their views about the aforementioned dismissal, with most Indian fans supporting Ashwin, while most English fans are right behind Buttler in his stance against it.