England batter Jonny Bairstow’s contentious dismissal during the second Ashes Test at Lord’s has become the talk of the town.

On Sunday (July 2), Bairstow was dismissed in a bizarre manner during the 52nd over of England’s second innings. Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey stumped him out when he was wandering out of his crease after ducking a Cameron Green bouncer.

The dismissal has sparked the Spirit of Cricket debate. After the game, England skipper Ben Stokes said he would not have preferred a win with the kind of dismissal that led to Bairstow’s departure.

"If the shoe was on the other foot I would have put more pressure on the umpires and asked whether they had called over and had a deep think about the whole spirit of the game and would I want to do something like that. For Australia, it was the match-winning moment. Would I want to win a game in that manner? The answer for me is no," Stokes told the BBC after England’s 43-run defeat at Lord’s.

However, the England captain’s comment hasn’t gone down well with the Australian legend Ricky Ponting.

For Ponting, the only relevant aspect about the dismissal was whether the on-field umpire had declared the over being complete or not.

"There's no (difference). There's none because the ball's still alive until the umpire calls over and the ball is alive and it doesn't matter if it's the fourth, first, second, or third ball, you still have to ask permission to leave your crease and if you do that, and the fielding captain says, yes you can leave your crease, then the ball is deemed as being dead," Ponting said in the latest episode of the ICC Review.

"It's pretty easy for Ben at the end (of the match), to sit down and give that point of view. But he was actually out there as the batting captain of his team. He could have asked, there and then, in the heat of the battle, if he was thinking clearly like he said he was three hours later in post-game," he added.

"If he was thinking enough, he would have said that to the umpires: 'You know, was it over? Had you started to move? Is the ball dead?' They were the questions that had to be answered then and not at the end of the game when he said it," he continued.

According to Ponting, times have changed since his captaincy days and modern-day players nowadays tend to take more liberties while being at the crease.

"I just think that the modern game's a bit different than it once was with respecting the captain of the fielding team. I know when I was playing, and the ball had gone through to the keeper, you wouldn't dare leave your crease until you actually asked the opposition captain if it was OK and if the ball was dead and Jonny hadn't done that," he concluded.

Having lost the first two Tests, England are trailing 0-2 to Australia in the five-match Ashes series. The third Test will be played at Headingley on July 6.