Bairstow a tough nut ... no butts

JONNY Bairstow knows all about getting up and going when things are tough.

In an interview with Michael Vaughan this year he revealed that his mother sent him to school the day after he came home to find his father, David, who had committed suicide. The thinking was that life must go on.

It was the harshest of lessons for an eight-year-old boy.

This tour has provided challenges of a different sort for Bairstow, but yesterday’s scintillating maiden Ashes hundred at the WACA reinforced what a tough character he is.

Bairstow was humiliated when “headbuttgate” became public earlier this tour, and a flood of emotion poured out of him when he celebrated his ton yesterday — he even butted his forehead against his helmet for dramatic effect.

Under all sorts of pressure for contributing to the off-field hysteria that has engulfed England’s tour, Bairstow produced a fighting knock to lift his side from the canvas.

Bairstow’s brilliant 119, featuring 19 blistering boundaries, was his first hundred against Australia and exhibited all the class of one of cricket’s great all-round athletes.

In Brisbane, Australia used headbutt jibes to get under Bairstow’s skin and forced him to throw his wicket away. Yesterday at the WACA, Bairstow fought fire with fire and butted back like a charging rhino.

Bairstow was in Leeds United’s prestigious football acad- emy until he was 16. He was also a champion schoolboy rugby union player with potential to turn professional, and a star hockey player.

For fun he plays off single digits on the golf course and is a massive fan of the Leeds Rhinos rugby league side.

In Adelaide he was given an Aussie Rules football by a member of the Australian staff.

Bairstow yesterday proved why it was his true calling to have a bat in his hands.

Like Bairstow Jr, his father David was an England wicketkeeper and Yorkshireman who played 459 first-class matches.

This year Bairstow released a heartwarming tribute to his dad, called A Clear Blue Sky, where he retells the harrowing story of how his father took his own life while his mother was battling cancer.

Bairstow has become known on this tour for the headbutt he landed on Cameron Bancroft’s chin in a Perth nightclub a few weeks ago but his life’s journey is one that few could relate to.

“No one knows why he did it and no one ever will,” said Bairstow of his father’s suicide.

“There’s no point questioning it every single day because if you do that it will bring you down.”

Mother Janet said she used to wish David was there to watch her prodigiously talented son excel in virtually anything he tried his hand at. He would have been proud yesterday. For help 24/7, call Lifeline on 131 114 or the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467.