MCC expels member at centre of Lord’s altercation

October 5, 2023 journo

London: The Marylebone Cricket Club has expelled a member at the centre of the altercations with Australian players at Lord’s during the second Ashes Test in July following a months-long investigation.

Two other members involved, who have not been named by the MCC, were given a four-and-a-half-year suspension and the other a 30-month ban. They are unlikely to be able to appeal against the decision.

The scenes followed English batter Jonny Bairstow’s controversial stumping on the final day of Australia’s 43-run victory. The players were booed loudly as they went through the Long Room to lunch, and David Warner and Usman Khawaja appeared to remonstrate with members.

Khawaja was captured on video footage calling out the behaviour of individual spectators at Lord’s.

“A few of them [were] throwing out some pretty big allegations and I just called them up on it, and they kept going,” Khawaja said at the time. “And if they kept going I was like, ‘Well, it’s your membership here’, so I was just pointing them out. But it’s pretty disrespectful, to be honest. I just expect a lot better from the members.”

Upon receiving word of the penalties, Cricket Australia expressed appreciation to the MCC for following up Khawaja’s complaints, which were supported by a detailed report compiled by the team’s security manager Frank Dimasi.

“We are appreciative of the support of the team by the MCC at the time and these subsequent sanctions,” a CA spokesperson said.

“We trust this brings the matter to a close and there will be no repeat of the behaviour in future.”

Based at Lord’s, which it owns, the MCC acts as custodian and arbiter of the laws and spirit of cricket.

In a letter to members, chief executive and secretary Guy Lavender said the men were all found to have used “abusive, offensive or inappropriate behaviour or language”.

“The actions of the three individuals in the pavilion on the day in question fell well below the behaviour expected from our members,” the club said.

Details of the disciplinary process will remain confidential and the MCC does not intend to publish the names of those sanctioned.

Australia’s Usman Khawaja has a quiet word to members inside the Long Room.Credit: Nine

“Although it is clear that a wider group of members were guilty of breaching the club’s code of conduct on 2 July, the club’s investigation has not yet been able positively to identify further individuals for onward referral to the chair of the disciplinary panel,” the letter added.

Full expulsion from the club, which has 24,000 members and a 20-year waiting list to become a member, is rare but can take place for breaches of the members’ code of conduct, including discriminatory or abusive behaviour. The members had paid their subscriptions in full in April and will not receive a refund.

The MCC immediately issued an apology to the Australian team, and Cricket Australia requested an investigation into what it termed “several incidents involving spectators in the members area during lunch on day five of the Lord’s Test”.

Australian captain Patrick Cummins later accused the men of behaving like “pork chops”.

This masthead reported at the time there was a high degree of anger among the wider MCC constituency about the incident, at a time when the culture of entitlement in English cricket is under the spotlight as a result of a damning report into diversity issues.

Bruce Carnegie-Brown, the MCC chairman, said at the time the incidents “had brought shame on the MCC” and that new measures would be immediately brought in, pending a full review of the protocols for the way members can interact with players.

In an email to members, he wrote: “The walk out of the Pavilion and towards the pitch is valued by players and members alike. The club will be taking a tougher stance on the general behaviour of members. We expect members not only to heed the words of our stewards in this regard, but to police one another’s behaviour.”

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