08 July 2023 , 22:03
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Fred and Wilma Flinstone were in the Headingley house, as were enough bishops to run the Church of England.
There was a prawn, plenty of bananas, and someone dressed as a dartboard with a mate who had come as Peter ’Snakebite’ Wright. Or maybe it actually WAS Peter ’Snakebite’ Wright.
And there was a man - or a woman - inside a giant, inflatable pig outfit being ‘pursued’ by five butchers with strings of sausages around their necks and armed with mock meat cleavers. But nothing was going to save Alex Carey’s bacon.
After Mitchell Marsh had failed to leave a Chris Woakes delivery, Carey’s every step to the crease was jeered. Accounting for those who had not hung around for the 4.45pm start, the reception was cacophonous. It was a well-lubricated loudness.
The reason for the hostility hardly needs explaining but for anyone who has been hiding for a week, Carey was the man who prompted some MCC members to loosen their egg and bacon ties and go full hooligan. Carey, judging by testimonies from team-mates and opponents alike, is a very likeable guy.
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He is also a very talented guy, averaging over 34 in his Test career and - more importantly, perhaps, considering Jonny Bairstow’s issues in this series - taking 92 percent of the catching chances that have come his way. And he is also a very tough guy, who could have had a career in Australian rules football.
That is why his team-mates were queuing up to tell the world Carey would easily deal with any flak that came his way in Leeds. It did not look that way as Saturday afternoon became a raucous evening.
Alex Carey is bowled out by Chris Woakes (Getty Images)Do you think England could still win the Ashes? Share your predictions in the comments below
Carey made a crucial 66 in Australia’s victory in the World Test Championship win over India earlier in the summer and the same score in the first innings of the opening Ashes Test in Edgbaston. In Australia’s first innings at Headingley, he scratched around for 16 balls before departing for eight and, in this second innings, he looked utterly uncomfortable before chopping a Woakes delivery on to his stumps.
Whether or not his discomfort was, in any way, related to the abusive chanting - it’s not often you hear a bishop chanting w***** at someone - is debatable. But as he was booed back to the dressing-room, he had been rattled and, for a spell, Australia had been rattled.
There has, though, never been an Aussie team that has lacked an appetite for the fight and up stepped Travis Head, silencing the Western Terrace by depositing the cricket ball on it (missing the pig) and treating Mark Wood’s 90-plus mph pace as though it was gentle medium.
England are odds-on to win this dramatic third Test but Head’s sensational knock might yet prove to be a match-winner. Whatever way it goes, Carey - whose team-mate Steve Smith felt compelled to defend him against a bizarre story that the Lord’s villain had not paid a Leeds barber for a haircut (mistaken identity, it turns out) - will be happy to see the back of Headingley and the Western Terrace.
Stuart Broad was probably wrong with the jibe he aimed at Carey out in the middle at Lord’s: “That’s all you will be remembered for.” Broad was referring to Carey’s career as a whole and that will not be the case - it is all he will be remembered for only when this Ashes series moves to Old Trafford and The Oval.
But if his wicket-keeping helps the Australians clinch the series on Sunday, Carey will have the last laugh.