England coach Brendon McCullum has admitted his team have been galvanised by Australia’s questionable dismissal of Jonny Bairstow at Lord’s and believes the incident will adversely affect relations between the two camps for the rest of the Ashes series.
Bairstow was stumped on the final day of the second Test after wandering out of his crease believing it was the end of the over.
Australia upheld their appeal to the anger of not only the Lord’s crowd but also the England dressing-room.
At 2-0 down in the series, McCullum’s men have a mountain to climb to win the Ashes but the New Zealander was frank about how he saw the Australians’ gamesmanship.
Asked if he thought the incident will affect the spirit between the two teams, he said: “I imagine it will affect it, I think it has to. In the end, they made a play, they’ve got to live with that, we would have made a different play but that’s life.
“From our point of view, we believe we can still come back in this series, and that’s where our focus has got to be.
“What I will say is it’s a galvanised the unit. I don’t know if it’s anger, but the unit is galvanised. There are times as a coach where you’ve got to reduce emotion because it’s going to bubble over and you can make poor decisions.
“There’s times when you allow emotion to go because it’s going to galvanise the unit. That’s what I felt this emotion did for the side. I looked around the group and the guys were a little upset. If that helps us to win those key moments in the next Test, then I’m all for it.”
England captain Ben Stokes described the incident as a “match-winning moment” and McCullum, whose side lost the Test by 43 runs after falling short of their target of 371, added: “From our point of view I would hope we’d make a different decision in that circumstance and knowing the boys and knowing the skipper as well I think we would have.
“In the end Australia won the Test match and fair play to them, it’s just a shame that when you’ve got millions of people all around the world, and you’ve got a full house here at Lord’s, and you’ve everyone’s eyeballs on this series, that for the next couple of days probably the most talked about aspect is going to be that, and that’s disappointing.”
