'Within The Rules': Old Video of Jonny Bairstow Justifying His Cheeky Stumping Goes Viral

They just keep on coming.

England made their disapproval loud and clear following the dismissal of Jonny Bairstow during the Lord’s Test last week which they lost to Australia and conceded a 0-2 lead in the five-match series.

Users on social media have been digging out old instances of England players celebrating dismissals which they feel is against the so called ‘Spirit of the Game’ and thus calling out their apparent ‘hypocrisy’.

Recently, an old video from a county championship match has surfaced on social media showing Bairstow effecting a cheeky stumping of Samit Patel and later justifying it for it not breaking any rules.

The second Ashes Test saw Bairstow getting out in similar fashion and different opinions have been flowing in since then.

Bairstow ducked underneath a bouncer from Cameron Green and assuming that the ball was dead, left his crease to speak with his skipper Ben Stokes at the other end.

Alex Carey, the Australian wicket keeper, landed a direct hit and appealed for a wicket that was given out upon review and Bairstow was sent packing.

The video which went viral amid the debates was a clip of a county match where Bairstow was seen wicketkeeping. Nottinghamshire batter Samit Patel was seen leaving a ball and then Yorkshire wicketkeeper, Bairstow, waited with the ball in hand till Patel lifted his foot to hit the bails.

In the post match interview, the English wicket keeper was asked about the stumping.

“What a fantastic stumping, an opportunistic piece of work?” asked the anchor to which Bairstow replied, “It is just one of those things that is within the rules of the game and that is how it is.”

The tweet which showed the video clip of the county match received comments supporting both sides. Few people have commented that the situations were incomparable while some have called it hypocrisy on part of England’s team.

The controversial dismissal was called out by former England cricketer Michael Atherton, who sided with the Australians on the matter and called the dismissal a legit one.

He stated that it was the English team which displayed very ‘flabby’ cricket on the field.

Ravichandran Ashwin also took it to social media and tweeted that the keeper would not have hit the stumps if he didn’t sense a pattern of the batter leaving the crease.

Salman Butt, former Pakistani cricketer, supported Australia as well stating that a batter should not be roaming outside his crease and no one is to be blamed for the dismissal other than the batter himself.

Eoin Morgan, former English cricketer, praised Carey for his smarts and grabbing the opportunity to take the wicket.

Brad Hogg, former Australian cricketer, was of a different opinion and called the wicket a cheap move. He stated that the Spirit of Cricket was pushed to the boundary.

“Bairstow wicket, Not Out. Spirit of cricket pushed to the boundary. Not attempting a run, end of over, scratched crease then walked for the regulation BS chat between overs between batsman,” tweeted Hogg.

He also added that if the Aussies had seen a pattern, they should have warned the batter before hitting the bails.