England captain Ben Stokes has said that he would have withdrawn the appeal if he was in a place where he had to make a call on a Jonny Bairstow-like incident. However, Bairstow was controversially stumped on Day 5 of the Lord’s Test on Sunday, July 2 when he walked out of his crease after leaving a ball from Cameron Green and Alex Carey threw down the stumps as well.

Notably, the batter thought the ball was dead, but it was deemed ‘not dead’ and the decision was referred to the third umpire and Bairstow was declared out for 10. His dismissal cost them the game as, despite Stokes’ stunning 155, they lost by 43 runs.

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Speaking on BBC’s Test Match Special, Stokes commented: “Jonny was in his crease, then out of his crease to come down and have the chat. I am not disputing the fact it is out because it is out.”Would I want to win a game in that manner? The answer for me is no,” he added.

Ben Stokes also opined on critics claiming that the ball was not a ‘dead’ one and hence Jonny Bairstow was wrong in walking out of his crease immediately as well.

He added: “When is it justified that the umpires have called over? Is the on-field umpires making movement… is that enough to call over? I’m not sure.”If the shoe was on the other foot, I would have put more pressure on the umpires and asked whether they had called over and had a deep think about the whole spirit of the game and if I would want to do something like that,” he added.

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“I did look back at Headingley but unfortunately it wasn’t enough. We beat Pakistan and New Zealand 3-0 [in 2022], so that is how we have to look at it,” he concluded.