No showboating from England, insists Bairstow

JONNY Bairstow is adamant England will not be seduced into showboating tactics against West Indies as they look to wrap up a series victory with one Test to spare.

England marked the inaugural day-night Test on these shores with a comprehensive innings-and-209run rout of the beleaguered tourists inside three days at Edgbaston last week.

The second Test has been tipped to follow a similar script unless the heavy rain that denied the Windies the chance of outdoor practice at Headingley on Wednesday morning resurfaces over the next few days.

Even fortune seems to be smiling on England as the sun broke through after midday which allowed them a full training session, but Bairstow is not taking anything for granted against an opposition who have this week received stinging criticism from the likes of former Windies great Curtly Ambrose.

With England chasing a fourth consecutive Test win tomorrow – with their latest success coming hot on the heels of back-to-back triumphs over South Africa – Bairstow believes they would be well suited to maintaining the standards that have served them well in recent weeks.

England’s wicketkeeper-batsman said: “It can change so quickly, you can lose a game in an hour, it’s very difficult to win it in an hour.

“We’ll go about it in the same way that we’ve gone about the South Africa series and the first Test, it’s not about putting on a show it’s about getting a result.

“That’s the main drive: we’ve got to get the result, we’ve got to go out and execute our plans, we’ve got to execute our skills in the correct way which will then lead us forward.

“There are areas in which we want to improve on from that first game, there’s things we still need to learn about ourselves leading into this game, there’s still a lot of hard practice to be done.

“We’re coming here back with the red ball at Headingley to a Test match that is back to the original rules and original conditions.

“It’s going to be an interesting five days.”