MCC member banned for life after clashing with Australian players at Lord’s Ashes test

One MCC member has been expelled from the club for life and two more handed lengthy suspensions for their involvement in confrontations with Australian players in the Long Room at Lord’s during the Ashes.

Three months after the incident, when Australian players were jeered as they left the ground in the wake of Jonny Bairstow’s controversial stumping in the second Test, the MCC handed down the bans for behaviour “well below the behaviour expected from our members”.

While details of the disciplinary process remained “confidential”, the information from the MCC revealed sanctions for life, 4½ years and 30 months respectively.

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

“The penalties set out above are the consequences of breaching the club’s code of conduct.”

Video footage of the incident showed Australian players being booed loudly as they went through the Long Room to lunch, and David Warner and Usman Khawaja appeared to remonstrate with members.

Khawaja was seen calling out the behaviour of individual spectators at Lord’s that he called “pretty disrespectful”. .

“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.”