The incident, on the fourth day of the second Test, is a major theme in season three of The Test, the documentary series following the Australia men’s team, which premiers on Prime Video on May 24. The Bairstow stumping and the fallout has been well documented, but Cummins’ central role in its execution has now been made clear.
“Cam Green was bowling and bowled a bouncer and he [Bairstow] ducked underneath it and then just walked out of his crease,” Cummins says. “So I just said to Kez [Carey] the ball before, I said ‘Kez, just have a throw’.”
Carey was on target with the throw and Bairstow was given out by the TV umpire which sparked one of the biggest controversies in recent Ashes history. The Australians were abused by MCC members in the Long Room as they came off the field for lunch with players from both sides then coming face to face in the dining area.
“Walking back into the Long Room, it was like we’d ripped the soul of out them … absolutely, yeah, people stepped over the line,” Cummins recalls in one of the interviews which intersperses footage from inside the dressing room.
Reflecting on the moment in the dressing room, Carey quips: “Someone told me to throw it…not sure who it was.”
Cummins was adamant at the time that there was no issue with the dismissal amid calls he should have rescinded the appeal and in the documentary he remains so. “Just clear-cut, it was out,” he says.
Following the Bairstow stumping, Carey endured significant abuse from crowds and on social media, the latter so much so that Australia’s cybersecurity police became involved.
The documentary shows Carey and his wife Eloise discussing the days and weeks after the incident. “It got a little nasty there for a while,” Carey says. “That’s probably the thing that shocked me the most, the abuse, people going after you…personal, family, all that sort of stuff.”
“Everyone projected on Kez and didn’t project on anyone else. It was all on Kez,” Khawaja says. “Looking back on it, I just feel so bad for him what he went through at the time and what his family would have gone through being there at the time. It would have been so hard.”
Ashes turns on Headingley collapse
“That moment there is probably one, like, you had it,” he says, “You literally had it.”
“Sometimes you can’t create something out of nothing,” Cummins says, “but it’s not nice when you are sitting there saying ‘yeah, we were totally outplayed there’.”
The Oval ball change
In the final Test, having been left a demanding target of 384, hopes were raised to the point of them feeling favourites as Khawaja and Warner put on a century opening stand. Then Khawaja got hit on the helmet by a Mark Wood bouncer and the umpires felt the need to change the ball. The one chosen appeared much harder and shinier, and even in a brief period on the fourth day before rain arrived it did much more. The Australians were not impressed.
“It’s almost like a brand new ball they’ve given them,” Khawaja says. “I was worried.”
Smith says: “This ball’s just from another planet, it’s like it had a mind of its own…think we could all see clearly from the cameras off the ground that the ball looked entirely different.”
In dressing-room footage, Smith is shown laughing at TV pictures. “They are not even close,” he says.
An overriding theme through the documentary is how Australia feel they are the better team. “We shouldn’t lose one game,” Labuschagne says early in the first episode, although Smith acknowledges their overseas record is not as strong.
“What England are trying to do is force the opposition to panic. Put all our egos aside, if we get them to play our brand of cricket they’re not good enough to compete against us,” says Nathan Lyon, whose series-ending calf injury is another key theme, ahead of the first Test.
By the end, the sense is of a missed opportunity, particularly for the players unlikely to get another chance to tour. “Disappointing is the word for me,” Smith says. “Feel like there’s unfinished business I suppose for this group.”
Cummins adds: “I’m incredibly proud of what we achieved but the competitor in me is still like, urgh, we left a little bit out there.”
Regardless, though, Khawaja was confident the series would go down in folklore. “I reckon there will be kids in the future talking about [the] 2023 Ashes because it had absolutely everything. At the end of the day, I have no doubt cricket was the winner.”
Andrew McGlashan is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo