When Ben Stokes finally began his walk back to the pavilion, Steve Smith scuttled over and gave him a pat on the shoulder.
As Stokes passed the non-striker’s end following his dismissal for a scarcely believable 155, Pat Cummins caught up with him and did likewise. A bit late for sportsmanship, lads.
Smith captained Australia between 2014 and 2018 before being stripped of the honour for his part in a ball-tampering scandal. Cummins, of course, is the current captain.
Between them, you might have thought they could have come up with the decent thing when Jonny Bairstow went walkabout, oblivious to Alex Carey’s underarm intervention. Withdraw the appeal, give Bairstow a warning, still win the Test and strike a blow for the sport of cricket.
Yes, yes, yes. Rules are rules, this is elite competition, no quarter given. And in football, for example, any notion of sportsmanship has long since packed its bags. But 20 minutes after Mitchell Starc uprooted Josh Tongue’s leg stump to wrap up febrile proceedings, those left in Lord’s were still jeering.
Whatever your views on the Bairstow dismissal - and a lot of ex-internationals thought it was good cricket from Carey and daftness from the England wicket-keeper - it turned the final day of this second Test into one of the ugliest seen at the Home of Cricket. Utterly thrilling while Stokes was laying contemptuous waste to the Australian attack, but ugly all the same.
Stewards had to guard the boundary rope, police were on standby and even the members in the Long Room kicked off. By cricket’s standards, it was unpleasant - by Lord’s standards, it was toxic. And to think this Australian team was being lauded for its all-round niceness ahead of this Test.
Of course, to suggest the snide stumping of Bairstow was a hugely decisive factor in England’s defeat would be to ignore the blindingly obvious. This is an Australian side that - pretty much from top to bottom - largely outplayed England in this second Test.
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That England got to within 43 runs of their target was only down to one of the most remarkable individual innings seen at this ground. The well of superlatives for Stokes has run dry but the brilliance of his knock was strengthened by the fact he had not looked in great nick since Ashes play got underway at Edgbaston.
But one of the positives England can take forward is that Stokes has smacked his way spectacularly back to form. At one point - not too long after the captain had got to his hundred by hitting three successive sixes - bookmakers actually had England down as favourites to go on and clinch the most dramatic of victories.
But it was always the tallest of orders and it now an even taller order for England to win the Ashes. The distasteful distraction of the Bairstow incident means that Australia’s performance in this Test match will be underrated, certainly by the English. But Australia won this match without being able to call on their world class spinner for England’s second innings.
And apart from having absolutely no answer to Stokes’ pyrotechnics, their pace attack always carried a good deal more threat than England’s. Australia won’t be bothered if their win does not get the praise it deserves or if their likability has taken a knock or even if a couple of gin-emboldened MCC members have a pop.
Of course they won’t. But a great Test match at cricket’s greatest venue was scarred by a moment when sportsmanship completely deserted the great game. And that is a shame.
