Booing a player entering the field of play in their 100th test: Tom Moody takes ‘spirit of cricket’ jab at English crowd’s hostility towards Steve Smith in Ashes

Tom Moody had a rather spicy take on the behaviour of the Headingley crowd during the 1st day of 3rd Ashes Test match on Thursday.
The crowd was pretty hostile towards the Australians after what transpired in the 2nd Test match at Lord’s in regards to Jonny Bairstow’s dismissal, booed Steve Smith who was playing his 100th Test match.
“Booing a player entering the field of play in their 100th test! 🤷🏼‍♂️ #SpiritOfCricket,” Moody wrote in a tweet, adding “And that’s not a Law, it’s just showing respect for one another,” in a follow-up post.

Booing a player entering the field of play in their 100th test! 🤷🏼‍♂️#SpiritOfCricket
— Tom Moody (@TomMoodyCricket) July 6, 2023
In the final day of the 2nd Test, Bairstow was adjudged stumped off Cameron Green’s bowling off the last ball of the 52nd over in England’s second innings pursuit of 371.
The sequence of the one-ball event was this. After ducking under Green’s bouncer, Bairstow wandered out of the crease without grounding his bat, presuming that the ball was dead and the over was completed.
But before he even reached the middle of the pitch to meet Ben Stokes, he could hear Australians celebrating. Shocked, he turned around to see the bails broken. The alert Australian wicket-keeper Alex Carey had under-armed the ball to the stumps and Bairstow was out of the ground. The on-field umpires passed on the decision to the television, Marais Erasmus, who gave him out.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, key wickets for Stuart Broad at the start and end of the opening session of the third Ashes test at Headingley gave England hope of keeping alive the series, with the tours languishing on 91-4 at lunch.
With tensions still high from the controversial second test at Lord’s that Australia won to take a 2-0 series lead, Broad got England fans off their seats when he dismissed opener David Warner for the 16th time in his test career in the first over.
Mark Wood, back in the side for the first time this series, then came on with a frightening display of pace bowling, with a 95 miles per hour thunderbolt taking Usman Khawaja’s leg stump out of the ground.
Ollie Robinson then found an unsettled Marnus Labuschagne’s edge, as the world’s number three ranked batter departed having scored 21.
The key wicket of Steve Smith, edging through to wicket keeper Jonny Bairstow in his 100th test for Australia, really put England in command as they looked to stop their old foes securing the Urn with two matches to spare.