Smith: This was the right time for Vince return

Selectors recall reject to cover injured Bairstow Yorkshireman could be batsman only in future

It is right that James Vince should be given another turn in Test cricket next Thursday at his home ground of Southampton. If this imperious batsman is going to succeed at reincarnating Michael Vaughan, now is the time, when he is in prime form for Hampshire and a little steel has entered his soul since being rejected by England for the first five Tests of this summer.

Jonny Bairstow’s broken finger means he will be replaced by Jos Buttler as wicketkeeper for the fourth Test. Before he took over from Bairstow at Trent Bridge, a third of the way through India’s second innings, Buttler had not kept wicket in a first-class match all year – Dane Vilas kept for Lancashire in the Roses match while Buttler tried his hands at slip-catching – but when Bairstow was injured in the defeat at Trent Bridge he slotted back seamlessly into the role he had played for almost 2½ years.

“The selection panel felt this was the right time to reintroduce James Vince to the Test squad,” Ed Smith, the national selector, said. “James will provide cover in case Jonny Bairstow’s fractured finger prevents him playing in the fourth Test match.”

Bairstow, in other words, could be selected solely as a batsman instead of Vince – and it may well be that Bairstow’s long-term future is as a specialist batsman, and not through any deficiencies he has as a wicketkeeper.

He is never polished, the ball never melts into his gloves, but he has gone whole series without missing a chance, and it would be surprising if any England wicketkeeper, even Alan Knott, has gone through a two-year period so near to faultlessly as Bairstow.

So it is not through any failings of his own that Bairstow could lose the gloves. It is because of the astonishing dearth of proven Test batsmen in England. Alastair Cook, Joe Root, Bairstow: that’s your lot.

Trevor Bayliss has started this sensitive ball rolling the right way by publicly labelling Bairstow “a world-class batter”.

But after Bairstow revealed his life story in a book last winter, and the circumstances of his father’s death, which could not have been more traumatising, an abnormal degree of insecurity has to be factored in.

“Yes, that’ll be the hard thing, trying to convince Jonny [that he should be a specialist batsman],” Bayliss agreed. “That will be a decision that is taken from the team point of view. He is a world-class batter, we know that. One of the difficult things might be convincing Jonny of that.

“If that was the way we went, it would certainly be a deep conversation. Jonny’s a reasonable bloke. If that’s the way we wanted to go … in the long run, he wants to play Test cricket. We know he wants to keep but there would be a lot of explaining and chatting.”

Bairstow has always said that if he does not keep wicket, he will be less productive as a batsman; that he will brood and fret in the field, and think too much about batting. “That might be his fear, it’s certainly not our fear,” Bayliss said.

What is undeniable is that Bairstow, like all wicketkeepers, is less productive as a batsman the longer a Test goes on.

Nobody has had the energy to do both jobs to world-class standard – nobody in an ordinary side, that is. Adam Gilchrist usually only had to bat once. All five of Bairstow’s Test centuries – and his 99 – have been made in the first innings of a game. He came close to breaking that