During the final day of the second Test at Lord’s, Bairstow faced a slow bouncer from Australia’s Cameron Green and assumed the ball was already “dead,” stepping out of his crease. However, wicketkeeper Alex Carey abided by the rules and dislodged the bails, resulting in the third umpire, Marais Erasmus, declaring Bairstow stumped in Australia’s favor.
Australia emerged victorious in the Test, securing a 43-run win and taking a 2-0 lead in the five-match series.
Butcher, who represented England in 71 Tests and accumulated 4,288 runs, revealed that almost everyone he spoke to regarding the incident believed Bairstow was indeed out.
“For me, it’s just as plain as day out. And pretty much to all of the other professional cricketers I have spoken to, they all say exactly the same thing,” Butcher told the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast.
“Why didn’t he (Bairstow) make sure that he knew where the ball was and what was going on before he left (the crease)?” added Butcher.
He blamed Bairstow for his own dismissal saying he should have known where the ball was when he ventured out of the crease.
“I was listening to it on the radio. Nobody had really described what had happened apart from, ‘oh no, oh this, oh dear’,”
“So I got on the phone to call my old man (father Alan, also a former cricketer). I said, ‘Just tell me what happened, just walk me through it’. So he walked me through it and I said, ‘So that’s out then, isn’t it?’ And he said, ‘yeah’.
Several experts had started questioning the spirit of the game following the incident but Butcher asked what was the England batter up to when he left the crease.
“What was he doing? Where was he going? Of course, now we’ve got an international incident. We’ve got people saying they’re not going to have a beer with each other after the game.”
England head coach Brendon McCullum had said post-match that he “can’t imagine we’ll be having a beer anytime soon (with Australians)”.
“And what’s worse, people who have definitely done worse things being holier than thou on social media saying how awful the whole thing is and how you would never have done anything like it. Nonsense.”
The third Test is scheduled to be played at Headingley from July 6.
(With inputs from PTI)
