The Australian prime minister tried to ambush his British counterpart at the Nato summit with a picture of the controversial stumping of England wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow in the Ashes cricket series.
Rishi Sunak was unexpectedly prepared, and produced from his official portfolio his own photo of England’s Mark Wood and Chris Woakes celebrating getting the winning runs at Headingley on Sunday, giving the host nation their first victory after two consecutive Australian wins.
Trying not to be outdone after initially holding up a print out of the 2-1 scoreline, Anthony Albanese warned: “I was going to be really provocative”, and then produced the image of Bairstow from the second test, which at the time prompted Sunak to complain that the Australian players had breached the spirit of the game.
But on this occasion, as they held a short meeting at the gathering in the Lithuanian capita, Vilnius, the encounter was good-humoured and enthusiastically briefed out in detail by British sources, before Albanese tweeted out the video of the two leaders ribbing each other at the critical summit, in which Nato leaders were criticised for failing to hand Ukraine a firm roadmap to joining the alliance.
Upon seeing the picture, Sunak replied: “I’m sorry I didn’t bring my sandpaper with me,” referring to a previous ball-tampering scandal from 2018, in which the former Australia captain Steve Smith and his deputy David Warner were caught trying gain an unfair advantage by roughing up one side of the ball with sandpaper.
“I promised Anthony Albanese I’d give him one of our ministerial folders,” Sunak said on Twitter afterwards. “Naturally it came with a little reminder of last weekend … two more to go.”
British government sources insisted both leaders having the same idea to give pictures to one another was entirely coincidental although each had clearly prepared for their encounter. One described the meeting between the two as “very friendly”.
