Banned For Life (Terms And Conditions Apply)

Musings on Lord’s from an anonymous former Australian Test cricketer

Well, well, well. Apparently the Lord’s toffs are letting back in the bloke they banned for life after the Bairstow stumping. Banned for life, mind you. Forever. Eternity. Until England wins a series in Australia. Except now it’s ‘Oh, we’ve changed our minds. Frightfully sorry. Do come back.’

Now, let’s get one thing straight. Alex Carey did absolutely nothing wrong that day. Jonny Bairstow wandered out of his crease like a stone-cold dill going for a Sunday stroll at the farmer’s market. Ball wasn’t dead. He just switched off and started daydreaming about what it’d be like to have a Test average above 35.

Carey saw it, did his job and stumped a dead-set idiot who was out of his crease. That’s not against the Spirit of Cricket - that’s cricket. If you leave your crease before the ball’s dead, you’re out. That’s it. That’s the rule. Don’t like it? Don’t leave your crease.

But these sherry-sipping Long Room dickheads lost their minds. Acted like Carey had run over the Queen’s leftover corgis. Gin and tonics everywhere. Someone’s monocle fell out. I think Lord Fartington-Smythe was overcome with the vapours. Absolute scenes.

And then they banned this one joker for life to save face.

But here’s the thing. Just between you and me? Those Lord’s members didn’t do anything wrong either. What was their crime? Supporting their team? Showing some passion? Having a stupid opinion about a perfectly legal dismissal?

Yeah, they had a go at our boys. So what? That’s what fans do. You think our members at the Gabba sit there politely sipping tea when the Poms are batting? Of course not. We give it to them. You reckon when Tugga had us grinding England into the dirt, our crowds were sitting there going ‘oh dear, I hope we’re not being too aggressive’? Hell no. We were loving it. Mental disintegration, mate. That’s the Aussie way.

Sure, maybe this one Lord’s bloke got a bit carried away. Maybe he said some things that weren’t ideal in the heat of the moment. But a life ban? For getting fired up watching cricket? That’s insane. But what do you expect from ruddy-faced blowhards whose idea of passion is politely clapping for centuries. Someone showed emotion and they panicked. Probably thought he was having a medical emergency. ‘Good heavens, Geoffrey, that man’s raised his voice! Call a physician!’

But here’s where I lose all respect for these cardigan-wearing cowards. If you’re going to ban someone for life, you stick to it. You don’t change your mind eighteen months later because it’s getting awkward. Life means life. That’s what the word means. You can’t say ‘banned for life’ then change it to ‘banned until Lord Toffington of Upper Lip Manor decides he’d quite like to come back’. That’s not how words work. Even in England, where they call private schools ‘public schools’ and beans on toast ‘cuisine’.

But the Poms have never understood how punishment works. A couple of hundred years back, they had too many criminals. So they rounded them all up and said ‘Right, you’re being punished severely. We’re sending you to Paradise to teach you a lesson.’ And they shipped them off to Australia.

The convicts got here, had a look around, and thought ‘Bloody hell, this is brilliant. Thanks, lads!’ Sure, everything was trying to kill them - snakes, spiders, crocodiles, the sun itself. Fuck me, even the platypus is venomous! But at least they weren’t in Manchester.

We had land to play in, and conditions to toughen us up. And now we dominate cricket. Bradman, Border, Warne, Waugh, Gilchrist, McGrath, Smith, Cummins, the list goes on forever.

So, yeah, they sent us to Paradise and called it punishment. Now they ban a bloke for life and call it quits after eighteen months. Same energy. Same total inability to understand what consequences actually mean.

You know what Australia did after sandpapergate? We lost our minds. We banned Smith for a year. Warner for a year. Bancroft for nine months. Everyone knew it was over the top. Everyone knew it was a PR panic. The punishment didn’t match the crime - they scuffed a ball, they didn’t fix a match or sucker-punch an umpire.

But you know what? We stuck to it. Every single day of those bans. When Smith was in tears. When Warner was hiding away. When Bancroft buggered off to a bloody yoga retreat. Even when it became obvious we’d cut off our nose to spite our face. That’s what standing for something looks like. Even when you’re standing for something dumb, at least you’re standing. It’s called having a spine.

What did these spineless Lord’s blowhards do? They banned this bloke for life, stood up in front of everyone, puffed their chests out, and said ‘This is unacceptable. This member is banned forever.’ And now? ‘Actually, never mind. We’ve had a think about it over cucumber sandwiches and decided life is a bit harsh.’

You know what that tells me? Tells me they don’t believe in anything. And it reminds me that the Poms never change. They’re the same weak-willed, flip-flopping, gutless outfit they’ve always been. They’ll talk a big game. They’ll write newspaper columns about Bazball and positive intent and revolution. But the second things get tough? They’ll fold. They’ll abandon Bazball. They’ll go back to blocking. They’ll start complaining about the pitches, the heat, the ball, the DRS, the stump microphones, the jet lag, the size of the boundaries, the flies, the kookaburras laughing at them, the beer being cold, the hotel being too far from the ground, the sky being too blue, the crowd being too loud, and probably the fact our grass grows upside down or some shit.

When Starc’s coming around the wicket jamming yorkers in at their toes, when Marnus is having full conversations with himself at the crease like he’s negotiating a hostage situation, when Smith’s doing that weird leave thing he does and still averaging 60, when Lyon’s got them tied in knots on day five - they’ll remember. They’ll remember what it feels like to have no spine. And you can’t play cricket without a spine. It’s not physically possible. That’s why worms don’t play cricket. And there are no larger worms than these Lord’s losers, who make fucken Dune look like my back garden.

So welcome back, mate. Whoever you are. You didn’t deserve the ban in the first place. But come December, when we’re 3-0 up and the Ashes are staying here where they belong, I hope you’re here in Australia. I hope you’re front and centre at the ’G. And I hope this time you give it to the England players, like you gave it to our blokes. Because unlike your mob, when we make a decision to hand out punishment, we stick to it.