Give Jonny Bairstow a knighthood. Whatever else happens at the Ashes, or indeed throughout the rest of his cricketing career, the England wicketkeeper has already earned his place in history, with his quick-thinking response to a Just Stop Oil activist who tried – and failed – to disrupt play at Lord’s this morning.

Immediately after the first over, two members of the eco-extremist troupe ran on to the outfield, wielding their trademark orange paint. Bairstow intercepted one of them, picking him up and carrying him all the way to the boundary, with all the calm and nonchalance of a man returning a stepladder to the shed.

England captain Ben Stokes and Australian batsman David Warner blocked the path of the other protester, giving the stewards enough time to catch up with him. A third was reportedly nabbed by security before he made it on to the outfield. In the end, the interruption only lasted a few minutes.

Bairstow joins a growing gallery of iconic counter-protesters who have put disruptive Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion lunatics in their place. This includes the good men and women at the Battle of Canning Town in 2019, where east London commuters swiftly dispatched two XR supporters who climbed on top of a Tube train. Or the builders and delivery drivers who now go viral on a near daily basis for clashing with and heckling road-blocking JSO irritants as they ‘slow march’ their way through London.

Labour is now the parliamentary wing of Just Stop Oil

Perhaps this stunt at Lord’s signals yet another shift in tactics among these groups. Having thoroughly alienated the working class, by forcing brickies to sit in traffic and causing mayhem at the Crucible, perhaps they are now focused on alienating the middle class – or at least the non-crusty wing of it – by going after their favourite pastimes. They’ll be gluing themselves to the BFI next.

Nowadays, it’s hard to find anyone who isn’t fed up with these activists. At the weekend, Trevor Neilson, an American entrepreneur who set up a fund along with Californian A-listers and billionaires to fund groups including Extinction Rebellion, told the Sunday Times that the tactics of those he once bankrolled are ‘counterproductive’ and ‘not accomplishing anything’.

What’s additionally infuriating is that these groups seem to become more shrill and extreme the more the political class agrees with them. The government is already committed to Net Zero, a polite term for eco-austerity. Labour is now the parliamentary wing of Just Stop Oil, given what the party has been saying about new oil and gas exploration. The only thing the two sides really disagree about is timings and rhetoric.

We need to stop asking why Just Stop Oil and others engage in these infuriating tactics, at Lord’s or anywhere else. The aim of these protesters is not to convince the general public, but to vent their apocalyptic, cultish rage – and to distinguish themselves from we dimwitted little people, content to go to work and watch some sport while the world, at least according to them, is on fire.

We should treat them with about as much respect and seriousness as they treat us. In that, Jonny Bairstow has shown us the way.