I heard about Jonny Bairstow’s stumping before I saw it. When I finally caught a replay the first thing I noticed was the speed with which Alex Carey got rid of the ball. People who follow county cricket will have seen keepers throw the ball at the stumps regularly – most of the time because people bat outside their crease to seamers – rolling it at the stumps just to keep the batters on their toes.
The difference was that Bairstow was in his crease to start with. If we are to believe the Australian version of events – and I think the evidence probably backs their view – he has developed a habit of marching off down the wicket, which they identified as something to target. Given the speed with which the keeper threw the ball, technically it was still live, so to the letter of the law the dismissal was fair. I wouldn’t want to see it happen regularly, but in my view it was legitimate.
