The incident took place when Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow were heading back to the dressing room after a hard-fought second session on Day 3 of the fourth Ashes Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Fans were heard calling the duo ‘fat’.
“Stokes, you’re fat,” a fan said.
“Take your jumper off, Bairstow, lose some weight Bairstow,” the England player was told.
Stokes ignored the abuse hurled at him but decided to react when his teammate was targeted. The all-rounder stopped at the stairs and the anger on his face was evident.
“Pal, That’s right. Just turn around and walk away. Weak as piss,” said Bairstow to end the spat.
Speaking after Day's play, Bairstow said, “It was just a bit of bad-mouthing from the crowd, it's not the greatest and it's not needed".
"We're out there trying to do our jobs, people are out there enjoying the day's cricket. Unfortunately, sometimes you have people who overstep the mark,” he added.
"I think it's important to stand up for ourselves because if we're not standing up for ourselves as well then we can cop it, especially when people overstep the mark they need to be told," he further added.
This isn’t the first time that something like this has happened at the SCG. Last year a group of people were accused of racially abusing India’s Mohammad Siraj.
Bairstow joined Stokes when England were dwindling at 36/4. The duo added 128 runs for the fifth wicket. Stokes fell prey to Nathan Lyon shortly after the tea break. The southpaw scored 66, his highest score in this series. On the other hand, Bairstow, who didn’t feature in the first two games, slammed England’s first century in this series. At stumps on Day 3, the Three Lions were 258/7, trailing by 158 runs.
Australia are ahead in the contest at the moment, Bairstow is still unbeaten on 103 and would like to take his side close to Australia’s first innings total of 416/8. On the other hand, Aussie bowlers would want to take the remaining wickets as quickly as possible.
