Australian press takes aim at ‘MCC snobs’ over Ashes controversy

Australian newspapers reacted strongly – and rather differently to their English counterparts – after a dramatic final day of the second Ashes Test at Lord’s.

While several English papers declared the events surrounded Alex Carey’s stumping of Jonny Bairstow as “just not cricket”, there was a rather different view from across the cricketing world.

MCC members came in for a fair amount of stick after the Long Room confrontation between a group of them and Australian players with the Sydney Morning Herald saying “the final day of the second Ashes Test descended into chaos”.

Andrew Webster wrote: “The first rule of MCC Fight Club is know the rules of cricket.

“I would have thought membership to the most famous club in cricket meant you understood the laws of the game.”

It was a theme continued in The Australia with Gideon Haigh suggesting “puce-faced MCC snobs should learn their own rules”.

Referring to the confrontation with opener Usman Khawaja at the lunch interval, he wrote: “What could be a worse look in the week of the Equity in Cricket report than dim-bulb snobs picking fights with a placid, softly-spoken Muslim player? Chaps, pull yourselves together.”

The paper did find time to concentrate on the cricket, former England captain Mike Atherton saying the one job Ben Stokes cannot manage is to “mask his team’s failings”.

He asked: “Has there ever been an England player whose competitive instincts have shone as brightly as they do from Ben Stokes?”

The Canberra Times said the stumping incident “exposes cricket’s ugliest debate” between spirit and rules.

But there were dissenting voices among the Australia press, the Daily Telegraph saying that “Australia forever taints famous Ashes win”.

Phil Rothfield wrote: “The greatest moments in Australian sport are often not about winning, but great acts of sportsmanship. This Ashes win will be remembered, but not for the right reasons.”