On Wednesday, Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, and Rishi Sunak, the prime minister of the UK, joked around with each other at a NATO meeting in Lithuania.
Albanese started the meeting by bringing out a piece of paper that said “2-1,” which is the current score of the Ashes and shows that Australia is in the lead.
As they stood for pictures, Sunak showed them a picture of Mark Wood and Chris Woakes celebrating after England won the third Test at Headingley this week by three wickets.
Albanese then sorted through some papers and showed a picture of England batter Johnny Bairstow being run out. This was just the start of a series of funny conversations.
He said, “I was going to be really provocative,” and then he showed the picture of Bairstow’s runout, which caused a lot of people to talk about the Ashes.
But Sunak was smart and said, “I’m sorry I didn’t bring my sandpaper with me.” This was a nod to the incident in 2018 about Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft messing with the ball.
After taking pictures, the two Prime Ministers quickly shook hands.
Sunak had more to say, so he went on Twitter to tell his opponent about England’s win and say that he hoped the same thing would happen in the last two games.
Sunak wrote on Twitter, “I promised Anthony Albanese I’d give him one of our ministerial folders.”It came with a little message about last weekend, and it said, “Two more to go!”