In the best cricket tradition, Bairstow v Carey turned on a man saying ‘over’ | Barney Ronay

The issue in this toxic Lord’s Test lies with the ever-nebulous notion of the spirit of the game

Frankly, it’s just not Bazball, old boy. On a febrile, toxic, at times mildly hallucinogenic day at Lord’s the cricketers of England and Australia produced one of the most obscurely rancorous days of high summer sport seen in this country.

Australia’s players were barracked by MCC members as they walked into the pavilion at the lunch break, with reports of “physical contact” initiated by the red-trousered ultras. The Lord’s crowd booed and jeered across four gruelling hours from midday to the close of play, a level of hostility that has surely never been witnessed inside this most mannered of environments, a place where a day’s cricket can often feel less like elite sport, more like a garden party that got out of hand.