Bairstow on path to greatness
Batsman is poised to join England’s elite 10,000-run club after replicating his white-ball form in Test arena
The most astounding thing about Jonny Bairstow’s 44-ball 71 not out on the fifth day at Leeds, to help England hurtle towards their chase of 296, was its sense of inevitability.
Then again, this innings merely ranked a distant third among his most remarkable Test innings of the past fortnight, during which he has found a rarefied level of batting, combining swagger and power with extraordinary control and calm.
This wonderful sequence – 136 off 92 balls in the run chase at Trent Bridge; 162 off 157 balls to lift England
from the debris of 55 for six to a first-innings 360 at Headingley; and then the encore – not only secured a 3-0 series whitewash over New Zealand. It has also opened the prospect of Bairstow establishing himself as a modern great of the English game.
Test runs have traditionally been the currency of English batting greatness. But when Eoin Morgan retires from the international game today, he will do so as the first England cricketer to achieve this elevated status without thriving in Test cricket.
Morgan is the 10th member of England’s 10,000-run club. The other nine – Joe Root, Alastair Cook, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Graham Gooch, Alec Stewart, David Gower, Andrew Strauss and Marcus Trescothick – scored most of their runs in Tests. Bairstow is 117 runs away from becoming the 11th member of England’s
10,000 Club. In limited-overs cricket, Bairstow needs only to continue at his present rate to mount an irrefutable case for greatness. Consider that, of the 74 players in oneday international history to score 2,000 runs opening, Bairstow boasts the fastest strike rate and the fourth-best average.
Most ODI openers are either reliable anchors or exhilarating aggressors; Bairstow is both. He scored consecutive centuries in must-win matches at the 2019 World Cup.
His quality and range as a Twenty20 batsman is such that he can excel in two vastly disparate roles, opening or attacking spin bowling during the middle overs.
In Test cricket, so far, Bairstow’s credentials are not as outstanding.
And yet all the frustrations of 201921, when England shunted him up and down the order, culminating in a run of 36 innings without passing 57, should not obscure his achievements as a Test cricketer.
In 2016, Bairstow scored 1,470 runs at 59 apiece, a record for any Test wicketkeeper in a calendar year. He has now scored 10 Test centuries. While his overall average, 36.1, is not of the top rank, this has come during a brutal era for Test batsmen: Bairstow averages almost exactly the same as Ben Stokes.
Over 11 years as an international cricketer Bairstow has thrived in all three formats – just not at the same time. If this reinvention as a belligerent Test No5 can continue apace, Bairstow will not just keep winning England matches in all forms of the game. He will also cement his place in the pantheon of English cricket.