Jonny Bairstow says Ashes sledging has gone beyond ‘headbutt gate’
TOUGH but fair is the assessment of the so called sledging war going on in the Ashes cauldron according to English batsman Jonny Bairstow.
He has been in the eye of the storm since revelations of “headbutt gate”, and the coming together of his head and new Aussie opener Cameron Bancroft’s in Perth way before the first Test even began.
Bairstow, writing a column for the UK Daily Mail, declared the incident was “nothing really”.
“Our security were there and happy nothing happened. Sorry, if I had headbutted someone I think they would have known all about it and damage would have been done,” he wrote.
“No offence was taken and, talking to some of the Australian boys, they didn’t know anything about it until just before some of their players made comments to me about it during the Test at The Gabba.
“Those comments were picked up by a stump microphone and suddenly it had snowballed.”
That’s when the on-field verbal barrage really amped up, with the “don’t headbutt our mates” line from Aussie vice-captain Davie Warner picked up but the stump mikes at the Gabba.
Bairstow revealed he copped it pretty heavy from then. He said he felt he had been “stitched up”, but didn’t think it was “anything to worry about”.
“I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong and, more importantly, the team and management knew that too,” he said.
But Bairstow also said the sledging he copped was nothing he didn’t expect, and denied suggestions the Aussies had crossed the line and got personal,
“Australia, as they have admitted, were trying to use it to get under my skin. Realising what they were doing was important. I never said a thing back to them,” he said.
“Even that picture of me talking to Peter Handscomb in the middle painted the wrong picture. He was just asking, “What was going on?” It did get to me a bit when they started sledging me because I didn’t know what they were talking about
“The second Test was played in a good spirit, tough but fair. There were some verbals from both teams but this time nothing crossed the line.
“There are going to be frustrations and flashpoints. But if we were the type of people who shrink from conflict and a battle, we wouldn’t be here.”
Bairstow even pointed out his friendships with three Aussies who had been teammates at Yorkshire, and said his friendships with them remained in tact.
“Remember, there are three members of the Australian side who have been teammates of mine at Yorkshire — Handscomb, Mitchell Starc and Shaun Marsh — and we get on very well off the field,” he said.
“I had a good chat to Mitchell after the second Test and we leave what has gone on during the matches out there. I’ve not lost any friendships over the last couple of weeks, put it like that.”
The sledging by Australia’s players during the opening two Ashes Tests must be really loud.
Former English players can hear it all the way in the UK.
And from what they are hearing, even though they won’t say exactly who is saying what, or to whom, the Aussies are being very naughty boys.
Spare me, please.
Former keeper Matt Prior, whose Test career was pretty much ended on the Ashes tour of Australia in 2013 when he crumbled like the current English top order as Nathan Lyon, not Mitchell Johnson, owned him, threw a bomb this week, just as his team went 2-0 down in the series.
“There has been a lot of chat on the pitch that hasn’t got anything to do with cricket and quite frankly shouldn’t be on a cricket pitch. Stuff that hasn’t come out for various reasons and whatever it may be,” Prior told English radio earlier this week, while in England.
Or at least Prior doesn’t want to go in to details he doesn’t have, or doesn’t know are correct.
Then ex-captain Willis, who is at least in Australia, went down the same path as Prior after the conclusion of the second Test in Adelaide, which England lost, a match during which English captain Joe Root had to be separated from Australian batsman Peter Handscomb who was trying to leave the field after day three concluded.
CROSSING THE LINE?
“I don’t like the rumours I’m hearing about it and the Australians really do need to learn to behave themselves on the field,” Willis said.
He even conceded it was “rumours” he was hearing, but still managed to lay all the blame at the feet of the Australians.
The TV cameras don’t lie. English seamer Jimmy Anderson was going a mile a minute on the third evening of the match whenever he got within earshot of Aussie captain Steve Smith.
No doubt he was just talking about how good day/night cricket was, how good the crowd was, how good the Adelaide Oval was.
Anderson fronted the media that night, and smirked his entire way through questioning about what was going on, what was being said.
If he was in any way aggrieved, he certainly didn’t show it. He loves it. That’s on record.
Then when the English bowlers came out on day four, they were relentless in talking to the Aussie batsmen, with hand signals to boot from Stuart Broad.
And they rolled through the home team in quick fashion, so their verbal assault, matched by quality bowling, did the trick.
UNSAVOURY BANTER
But no Aussie commentators or ex-players are talking about “rumours” of unsavoury banter form the visitors.
To this point no player, from either side, has copped any sort of sanction from the ICC either for stepping over the mark.
If anyone was to know what’s really going on, however, it would be the players.
Craig Overton made his Test debut in Adelaide. Fresh meat for the Aussies you would think. Not quite.
Yes, they went at him with fast, short bowling the likes of which he had never seen, even taking the wind out of him when Pat Cummins got one to rise up in to the big fast bowlers ribs.
“He (Cummins) didn’t say anything,” Overton wrote in a column for The Times in the UK.
How’s that? These vicious sledgers, who go below the belt, well according to rumours anyway, didn’t launch in when they had a man down?
“Most of the Australia team are good lads and came up to make sure I was all right after I was hit,” Overton said.
That’s not to say the Aussies were completely silent when Overton first came to the crease.
“They also reminded me that I was yet to score a run in three innings on tour and an ‘Audi’ (four consecutive noughts, resembling the car maker’s emblem) was looming,” he said.
“On the pitch they like to create a bit of a bubble and say a few words. But off the pitch they seem like pretty good lads.”
Pretty good lads.
Depends who you talk to of course. But always best to start with the men in the middle.
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