Jonny still new kid in town
JONNY BAIRSTOW is one of cricket’s curiosities: valued highly enough to play 76 Test matches for England but not to be given a settled role in the side. Yesterday, with a contribution of 57, he did what he could to make his case for a run batting at No 5. It had been 48 hours shy of two years, and 20 innings, since Bairstow’s previous Test half century — a first-innings 52, also at Lord’s, in the Ashes Test of 2019. Back then, he held the wicketkeeper’s gloves and batted at No 7. In the interim, he was axed on multiple occasions and changed position in the order seven times all told. At times, he could have been forgiven for thinking it was a conspiracy. He was shunted up the order to accommodate former national selector Ed Smith’s selection of Jos Buttler as a specialist batsman at No 7. Then relieved of the gloves. He’s had them back since but only ever on loan. It is four years since he batted in the same position for a Test series of three matches or more.
For this one, he has taken the customary spot of the absent Ben Stokes. Yet the prospect of being asked to shift as a result of others’ performances lingers. With Dom Sibley under pressure, there is an argument for Haseeb Hameed to be promoted to open and Bairstow returning to No 3, allowing Ollie Pope or Dan Lawrence a route back into the XI.
Asked about his constant flitting, Bairstow said diplomatically: ‘You want to be playing, and if you’re playing and scoring runs you will be in the side. I also think it depends on how the balance of the side works. There are different balances and different looks we can go for. You have got to be mindful of that naturally but first and foremost I want to remain in the mindset I’m in, remain with the method and technique I’ve implemented, hopefully continue to score runs and be out there for longer periods of time, putting on 100 partnerships.’
In England’s six three- figure stands in Test cricket this calendar year, unsurprisingly Joe Root has been a constant. His partner in half of them has been his Yorkshire team-mate Bairstow.
Yesterday they put on 121 and the 31- year-old’ s pre-match confidence, taken from two starts in the first Test in Nottingham, did not look misplaced. As he took Mohammed Shami for four fours in eight deliveries to propel himself from single figures to the 20s in a jiffy — one via an edge, the other three a combination of deft touch and crisp striking — it was as if the pyjama-clad Jonny was in town. With each passing stroke, the three ducks in four innings against the same opponents last winter were becoming more of a distant memory. His own mind, scrambled in the heat of Ahmedabad, was being freed.
When India’s bowling to him tightened, so too did a defence that has been breached by straight balls too often for a player of his obvious talents. The counter-argument is that Bairstow has never truly taken his chance to end the debate about his worth, by producing the consistency that is a feature of his white-ball career.
He was eventually suckered by Mohammed Siraj’s Bodyline barrage shortly after lunch and while this was small beer compared to hundreds in Cape Town and Perth, it could be a significant start in what has been the most stop-start of Test careers.