Even those who have known that everything the atmospherics are meant to achieve at cricket’s headquarters are part of what RC RobertsonGlasgow used to call “the air of holy pomp” would have been shocked when Long Room members verbally as well as physically clashed with Australian players after the dismissal of Jonny Bairstow. It was a scandal. And between Rishi Sunak’s “spirit-of-cricket” glibness and Anthony Albanese’s “always-winning” thumbs-up cheering for his boys is the unpublicised truth that those high-ups at Lord’s bellowed newer, stricter rules for their own members, with visiting cricketers given the privilege of a roped-off area for movement in the hallowed enclave. Usman Khwaja who was abused loudly has disclosed that some Australian players were tripped as the Long Room descended into chaos that suggested members had forsaken the traditions of sophistication and elegance bequeathed to them.

While the Marylebone Cricket Club has said some members have been rapped over the knuckles, journalists from the world around us tell us this was much worse than a college-level roughhouse when responsible people allowed momentary passions to rule actions they knew they would later be required institutionally to apologise for. It was about taking on Australia, and there was an uncomfortable Ashes history in it. You can imagine without invoking the past the frantic e-mails that would have been exchanged in the wake of the fracas; only the special new-age financial relationship that binds India, Australia and England together probably staving off a diplomatic crisis no one wanted cricket to saddle the world with. This makes you wonder what things would have been like if any country outside the blessed trio found their team being abused in the Long Room and furtively tripped up.

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For now, word is, MCC members are required not to put on social media videos of their own indiscretions on the club premises: another swift reaction. It might not have ended with the Dove of Peace flapping its wings so easily and so promptly. There, after all, was no doubt whatsoever that Australia’s argument in the dismissal of Bairstow was correct. Such of England’s leading lights, including Bazball coach Brendon McCulum, as have voiced the customary spirit-of-the-game waffle have been pointed out to have simply gone to press their advantage. But England probably find it hard to take that Bazball, only two matches into the five Test series, is seen to have suffered the power outage which probably rules out any continuation of the experiment.

England for months invested a lot in it, going right down to the counties to unite their entire infrastructure in a cohesive venture to give cricket a new direction. At Lord’s, it failed a second time after Edgbaston. The Long Room tragedy showed the depth of England’s frustration. Sunak, of course, did not nettle Albanese with terse, or epic protests.