E
ngland bowler Josh Tongue labelled Jonny Bairstow “a bit of a hero” after the wicketkeeper’s intervention stopped a Just Stop Oil protest inflicting a prolonged delay to the second Ashes Test.
Bairstow tackled one of two demonstrators from the activist group who broke onto the outfield after solely an over’s play on the primary morning at Lord’s , stopping the invader from reaching the sq. with JSO’s trademark orange dye.
Cricket has been braced for such demonstrations all summer time, following comparable protests at a bunch of sporting occasions, together with rugby’s Premiership closing and snooker’s World Championship.
Players had been briefed on the risk and advised to not intervene had been protestors to enter the taking part in area, however any harm to the pitch may have resulted in a big hold-up and gamers opted to take issues into their very own arms.
Ground workers have ready back-up wickets in any respect 5 Ashes venues this summer time as a contingency plan, however even that will take time to prepared for match use.
“‘I didn’t see it at first,” Tongue mentioned. “Jonny doing what he did, who knows, the game could’ve been called off.
“[He’s] a bit of a hero to be fair. If he didn’t stop him, they could’ve got on the pitch and done something to the pitch.”
Australian opener David Warner was batting on the time of the pitch invasion and, together with England captain Ben Stokes, held up the second protester till stewards had been in a position to intervene.
Action Images by way of Reuters
Action Images by way of Reuters
Action Images by way of Reuters
Action Images by way of Reuters
“Me and Stokesy didn’t really know what to do,” he mentioned. “We’d been warned beforehand that it might happen and for us we wanted to protect our wicket.
“It’s a touchy situation, you don’t want to be involved in that but we wanted to stop them getting onto the wicket. It was quite confronting because you don’t know what to do in that situation, you usually let those people run their course but because they could potentially damage the wicket we felt like we had to intervene.
“I don’t know what that chalk does to the wicket but it would have been a long delay and we wouldn’t have wanted that.”
