Jonny ticks Leeds ton off his list
BUCKET lists tend to be longingly stared at rather than immediately acted on, but Jonny Bairstow is a doer, not a dreamer. Next up, he says, is a hundred at Lord’s, followed by running a marathon, riding a horse, and visiting the Far East and Victoria Falls. But, honestly: a Yorkshireman reaching three figures for England in front of his adoring brethren? It’ll be all downhill from here.
Bairstow follows in a proud tradition of Yorkshire Test hundreds at Headingley that stretches back to FS Jackson in 1905 and takes in Len Hutton, Geoff Boycott, Michael Vaughan, Joe Root and Adam Lyth. But none can have matched the belligerent fluency Bairstow showed here.
Resuming on his overnight 54, he divided the rest of his innings into two chunks: urgent and very urgent.
The first chunk came while he and Alex Hales were extending their sixth-wicket stand to 141, of which Bairstow — who ended up overtaking his partner, despite coming in 32 overs after him — made 91.
The second came after England threw away three wickets for nine runs shortly before lunch, leaving Bairstow, now on 97, with only Steven Finn and Jimmy Anderson for company.
But two overthrows eased him from 98 to 100, sparking a spinetingling ovation, and after lunch he set about the Sri Lankans, taking 18 off an over from Nuwan Pradeep. By the time Bairstow launched Dushmantha Chameera to long-on, he had scored 140 out of England’s 206 while he was at the wicket.
This was not so much an innings as a one-man statement of intent. Forever on the lookout for a quick single, he turned ones into twos with lung-bursting enthusiasm, a canny tactic on a surface where runs have not otherwise come freely. And he punished anything remotely loose. It was an innings of which Adam Gilchrist would have been proud.
From being a stop- start player whose first 14 Test caps were spread across seven series, Bairstow suddenly feels like the team’s engine.
Since the start of the recent tour of South Africa, where he hit an emotional maiden Test hundred at Cape Town, he has averaged 83 with a strike-rate of 73. And he is loving every minute.
He said: ‘Over the last couple of years things have clicked into place. It’s one of those days that won’t come around very often. There’s no better place to score a hundred than in front of your home crowd, and it’s a joy to keep wicket to these guys when the ball is swinging.’
His innings will inevitably revive debate about his place in the order. Bairstow replaced Jos Buttler behind the stumps in the UAE in November, but one possibility would see Bairstow moving up two spots to No 5 and handing Buttler — currently at the IPL — the chance to resurrect his Test career with the gloves.
But Bairstow is adamant his current role is the one he wants, telling the ECB’s match programme: ‘It is doing both jobs that makes me the kind of cricketer I am.’
By that he means a cricketer who likes to feel wanted and, above all, who likes a challenge. His keeping in both the UAE and South Africa looked shaky, prompting heartfelt pledges to improve his glovework. Five catches here as Sri Lanka stumbled to 91 all out suggested he has been true to his word.
And, despite Jimmy Anderson having claimed five for 16 to demolish the Sri Lankans, it was Bairstow who was allowed the honour of leading the team into the pavilion.
In one sense, that was no surprise, for there’s little he isn’t doing right now. And, for bucket-list aficionados, it is worth noting that the next Lord’s Test is less than three weeks away. Expect nothing other than a big tick.
Test century at Headingley is top of my bucket list