Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunak and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese shared a light moment during the two-day summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius on Tuesday.
Albanese handed a picture of the controversial stumping of England wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow, during the ongoing Ashes, to Sunak.
However, it seemed as if Sunak was prepared for Albanese’s ambush as the UK Premier produced a photo of England’s Mark Wood and Chris Woakes celebrating the win at Headingley on Sunday from his official portfolio.
Albanese also initially showed a print out of the 2-1 scoreline of the series before moving on to the Bairstow stumping while stating that he “was going to be really provocative”.
After seeing the picture, Sunak chuckled: “I’m sorry I didn’t bring my sandpaper with me,” while referring to the scandal from 2018, in which the former Australia captain Steve Smith and David Warner were caught tampering the ball with sandpaper.
“I promised Anthony Albanese I’d give him one of our ministerial folders,” Sunak said on Twitter afterwards. “Naturally it came with a little reminder of last weekend … two more to go.”
According to The Guardian, British government sources said that the sharing of pictures was entirely coincidental rather than being pre-planned.
It must be noted that, after losing the first two Tests of the cricket series, England made a comeback in the series with a three-wicket win at Headingley last week.
England need a victory in the fourth Test in Manchester, which will take place at Old Trafford from July 19-23, to keep the series alive ahead of the fifth Test at the Oval in London, which is slated to begin on July 27.