Charity surprise winner in Bairstow row
As play started at Headingley on Friday it was 8pm in Wollongong, not far south of Sydney, and the rugby league game between St George Illawarra Dragons and Canberra Raiders was simultaneously getting under way. Australia’s NRL is currently running a promotion called Try July, in which a sponsor coughs up $5,000 for charity for every novelty try celebration witnessed across the month, and the Raiders had been planning. Eight minutes into the game Jordan Rapana scored a try and the Raiders team headed to the corner, where Elliott Whitehead – a Yorkshireman, born in Bradford – mimed taking guard and his teammates used the oval ball to recreate Jonny Bairstow’s controversial stumping at Lord’s. “Oh the stumping – and the Pom is out!” gushed commentator Dan Ginnane.
