Root’s men a but Australia

CAMERON BANCROFT had his captain Steve Smith in stitches as he gave reporters his side of the Jonny Bairstow headbutt incident.

REPORTER: Cameron, well done on the innings. But can you talk us through the incident, from what you remember?

BANCROFT: I remember it very clearly. We’d just won a Shield game for Western Australia. One of our values is celebrating success, so we were, as a team. That coincided with the English team arriving in Perth for the tour game. It was very friendly mingling the whole night. Some of the players knew some of the English players, and as the night progressed it was great to be able to meet some of those guys. I got into a very amicable conversation with Jonny, and...yeah, like, he just, um, just greeted me with... just...a head-butt kind of thing. I was expecting a

handshake. It wasn’t the greeting I was expecting. There was certainly no malice, and we continued on having a very good conversation for the rest of the evening.

REPORTER: Did he apologise to you that night or subsequently?

BANCROFT: At the time, he said sorry. For me personally, it was just...really weird. It was so random, and I certainly didn’t expect it. As I said, a handshake or a hug would have been something I expected more than a head-butt. But as I said, there was certainly nothing malicious about his action. I just took it as, ‘Yeah, I don’t know Jonny Bairstow, but he says hello to people very differently to most others’. We got along for the rest of the night quite well. I’ve let it go and moved on. It was fine.

REPORTER: Sorry, Cameron. I realise this probably sounds a bit ridiculous. Did he head-butt you like that (motions head-butt), forward? Or (motions glancing

head to the side)? We can’t actually work (it out).

BANCROFT: Just... I dunno. Whatever your imagination pictures it as, is probably what it would be.

REPORTER: Because when we imagine a head-butt, we imagine... knocking someone over, you know?

BANCROFT: No, he didn’t knock me over. I’ve actually got the heaviest head in the Western Australia squad. It’s been measured. So yeah, I just took the blow quite well and moved on from it. Yeah, it was a good hit. Play on.

REPORTER: Trevor Bayliss said that it was a long way from being a head-butt. He said there’s a head-butt, and there’s what happened to you. So could you perhaps define, maybe on a one-to-ten basis, how close it was to a head-butt?

BANCROFT: He connected with... with my head. With a force that

would make me think: ‘Wow, that’s a bit weird.’ And that was it.

REPORTER: Where was it? Was it the top of his head hitting you in the nose?

BANCROFT: Well, head-butts clash with heads, and when he made the decision to do that, our heads collided.

REPORTER: Whereabouts? A head-butt, it can break your nose. It can put you in hospital. So where did the top of his head hit yours?

BANCROFT: Yeah, it hit my head. Yeah. Hit me there (taps his forehead). Forehead.

REPORTER: Cameron, you’ve made your Test debut for Australia. Is this how you envisaged your first press conference going?

BANCROFT: Uh, not really, no. But look, it’s all good humour, isn’t it? I’ll look back on this one day and it’ll be a dot in my life.