An Episode on BBC Test Match Special

TMS has insinuated that Alex Carey is a cheat. Cook has not apologized.

Note: This entry records a revealing incident on BBC Test Match Special which, in my view, needs to be recorded properly and accurately for posterity.

During a passage of play on the first day of the 3rd Ashes Test at Headingley Sir Alastair Cook, the former England captain and opening batter, relayed the following story to Jonathan Agnew MBE. On its Twitter account, Test Match Special posted this clip. Nic Savage of Fox Sports posted the following transcript of the conversation, in case you are unable to listen to the TMS clip.

Needless to say, the story was nonsense. Carey said nothing. Cricket Australia denied the facts as claimed by Sir Alastair Cook, as Nic Savage reported. The original story was published in The Sun. The reporter for The Sun never bothered to seek a comment from either Alex Carey or Cricket Australia. Sir Alastair Cook just happened to visit this barber in Leeds, and, here’s the funny bit, told the barber “what had happened”.

What had happened? Jonny Bairstow was out stumped when Alex Carey threw the stumps down and Bairstow carelessly went walkabout. The stumping was legal. Carey did not attempt any subterfuge. Australia rightfully claimed a perfectly proper dismissal which came to them giftwrapped by Bairstow’s inattention. All of England collectively threw its their toys out of the pram - from their Test captain, to their Prime Minister, to this barber in Leeds who, apparently, didn’t know about the event at all, but immediately recognized how problematic it was after hearing an account from his haircutting client Sir Alastair Cook after the teams and everyone else had arrived in Leeds for the third Test. “He’s starting to get quite the reputation.”, said the barber.

The thing is, all cricketers, and most BBC Test Match Special commentators know that the dismissal was entirely proper, and that it was an entirely unforced error by Bairstow.

Sir Alastair Cook and BBC Test Match Special thought little of insinuating that Carey was a habitual cheat. That was the point of Sir Alastair Cook recounting the story to Jonathan Agnew MBE on Test Match Special’s commentary. Former players on commentary are friends and former colleagues of several current players. They’ve been teammates or opponents, often friends. They know things about players. Yet, they rarely reveal private incidents unrelated to cricket on commentary. They’re unlikely to reveal even private incidents (beyond the reach of stump cameras) from Test matches in the past on air.

Yet, Sir Alastair Cook chose to recount this particular conversation he had with a barber in Leeds.

Sir Alastair Cook has since had more to say on BBC Test Match Special about this incident. It is unclear whether Jonathan Agnew MBE was sitting next to him for moral support when Cook had his second say. Wisden.com has generously described it as an apology. They report

“There’s also been a bit of fuss… … which might have been discussed on radio the other day” is a novel way of saying “I accused Alex Carey here on air, speaking to hundreds of thousands of listeners, of not paying his haircutting bill, and insinuated that he was a habitual cheat…”.

Besides, the problem was not the mistaken identity. What’s Sir Alastair’s point (if you’re annoyed by now that I keep using ‘Sir’, its Cook’s major selling point. It’s how BBC TMS refer to him)? That it was a different Australian player who got a hair cut and didn’t pay for it? Or, is it simply that a diffeent Australian got a hair cut and didn’t pay for it?

So, in this insultingly imprecise, weaselly, passive voiced fudge which Wisden.com (and to be fair to Wisden.com, a few other publications too) describes as an “apology”, Sir Alastair Cook fails to describe what he’s apologizing for, and also fails say that he actually did anything, let alone that he did anything wrong.

On the one hand, this style of “apology” is common in this age of attention. On the other, this is the classical behaviour of the bully. Bullies invent causes with which they justify their belligerence, and when they’re caught out, tell the world that they’re sorry that the world created such a fuss.

You will not be surprised that the other recent refrain from English voices who were outraged over the Bairstow stumping is that they now want to “move on”. This is also the classic behaviour of the bully. They want the rest of us to stop making a fuss because it upsets them that we’re making a fuss about them seeking spurious moral high ground and pretending that their opponent is a cheat. They started it, and now they want to end it. Why won’t we let them?

During the third Ashes Test of 2023, BBC Test Match Special provided a massive platform on which the Australian wicketkeeper was branded a cheat without any foundation whatsoever. It might have been by a nudge and a whisper, done in a way which a certain kind of Englishman often describes as “understated”. But that is precisely what was insinuated by TMS’s biggest superstar expert, unchallenged by Agnew.

Alex Carey did not cheat. He did not even try to trick Jonny Bairstow. And yet, he has been branded a cheat by Sir Alastair Cook (161 Tests, 12,472 runs, 33 100s, 175 catches) on Test Match Special. Cook did not own up to what he did. He did not apologize for doing what he did.

It is as I said at the top of this post, an incident worth recording accurately for posterity.