Bairstow to silence critics – Malan
YORKSHIRE BATSMAN Dawid Malan says Jonny Bairstow will be fired up to prove the England selectors wrong when the club goes in search of its second successive victory in the Bob Willis Trophy.
Malan believes his team-mate will have a point to prove in the fixture against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge that starts tomorrow.
Bairstow was controversially left out of England’s Test plans for the series against West Indies and Pakistan and has instead been playing international one-day cricket, with England using separate red and white-ball squads due to the logistical issues presented by Covid-19.
As he prepares to line up in a Yorkshire side for the first time alongside Bairstow – who is also available for the club’s first home match in the competition against Derbyshire the following week – Malan believes his county colleague will have the bit between his teeth even more than usual.
“Jonny will be really hungry after being left out of the Test squad,” said Malan, who topscored with 73 on debut as Yorkshire won by six wickets in their opening Trophy game away to Durham.
“He’s got a point to prove, so hopefully he can come in and score a big double hundred and we can win the game inside three days.
“It’s been a tough 12 months for him in Test cricket – he probably hasn’t scored the runs he would have liked, but his record in all formats of the game proves he’s one of the best in the world.
“Hopefully it spurs him on to work even harder – not that he hasn’t been working hard – and to put his head down and score some big runs and say (to the selectors), ‘You should have picked me.’
“When Jonny is in that mood, as you’ve seen in the international white-ball game over the years when he thought that he should have been playing for quite a long time and wasn’t picked, he’s proved his point.”
Bairstow, 30, is desperate to regain his Test spot having lost it to fellow wicketkeeper/batsman Jos Buttler.
The Yorkshireman has a better Test record than Buttler with the bat – averaging 34 with six hundreds compared to Buttler’s 31 with one century going into this week’s opening Test ag ainst Pakistan – and is widely perceived as the better keeper.
Speaking after equalling the record for the fastest one-day international fifty by an England batsman earlier this month, when he reached the mark from 21 balls against Ireland in Southampton, Bairstow said: “I’m looking forward to going back and playing for Yorkshire in the fourday comp (Bob Willis Trophy).
“I’ll be trying my best, that’s all I can do, to put myself back in the shop window to be selected in the Test squad again.”
Bairstow is returning to a Trent Bridge ground where he has happy memories of playing for Yorkshire and England.
He scored his maiden firstclass hundred there in 2011 – going on to reach 205 – and is now just one short of 25 first-class centuries.
Malan is relishing the prospect of linking up with him in a powerful Yorkshire top-order despite the ongoing absence of Gary Ballance.
The former England batsman is still not 100 per cent following a recent illness.
“I’m looking forward to having Jonny back and hearing him moan about a few things, which keeps me from moaning,” quipped Malan, who has represented England 26 times in all formats himself.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with Jonny in and around the England group, and we get on really well. I was batting with him when I scored my Test hundred (against Australia at Perth in 2017), and I kept him in the loop when I signed for Yorkshire.
“I spoke to him and Liam Plunkett quite a bit before I made the decision (to leave Middlesex last year).”
Bairstow will take the gloves at Trent Bridge with Jonny Tattersall set to play as a specialist batsman in preference to Will Fraine, who drops out of the squad.
Pace bowler Duanne Olivier is back after missing the Durham match while Yorkshire got him up to scratch after he had to quarantine on return from his native South Africa. Fellow South African pace bowler Mat Pillans is also included in a 13-man squad, which features two more pace bowlers in 23-year-old Jared Warner and 19-year-old Dominic Leech, neither of whom have played first-class cricket for Yorkshire.
Ben Coad (side) and Matthew Fisher (abdominal) picked up niggles in Durham and will be monitored, say Yorkshire, “on a week-by-week basis”. England allrounder David Willey is back after ODI duty but will build up his overs in the coming week before being considered.
Fellow all-rounder Matthew Waite is unavailable due to a back injury.
Jonny will be really hungry after being left out of the Test squad. Yorkshire batsman Dawid Malan offers support to county and country team-mate.
Yorkshire (from): Bairstow, Brook, KohlerCadmore, Leech, Lyth, Malan, Olivier, Patterson (captain), Pillans, Shutt, Tattersall, Thompson, Warner.