GRUMPY JONNY GETS THE GLOVES
Root will continue to shake up the keeping duties
JONNY BAIRSTOW will resume his job as England’s wicketkeeper for today’s fifth and final Test against India — but with a warning from Joe Root that he may yet face a jobshare.
As if England didn’t have enough on their plate trying to deal with the emotion of a farewell to Alastair Cook while also aiming for a 4-1 series win, Joe Root was left playing down suggestions that Bairstow’s grumpiness in Southampton — where he ceded the gloves to Jos Buttler after breaking a finger — had contributed to this late-season volte-face.
Bairstow cut a disconsolate figure at the Ageas Bowl after learning of his new role at No 4. And there is little doubt that Buttler, who will resume the job he was handed at the start of the summer as a specialist No 7, demands less of Root’s manmanagement skills.
But Bairstow, who will return to his favoured position at No 5, has been given the gloves once more on condition he proves he is worth it. Root didn’t say that Bairstow owes him one. Then again, he hardly needed to.
‘I made it very clear that if he’s going to be the Test-match wicketkeeper he is going to have to keep working really hard,’ said the England captain.
‘He might have been performing well for a long period of time but he’s going to have to keep doing that.
‘It is a great reminder of what it takes to be at the top of your game and hopefully he uses it as a driving force to keep improving, not just his keeping but his whole game.’
The allusion to Bairstow’s batting was no accident.
After starting the series well at Edgbaston and lord’s, he has scored just 21 runs in his last four innings, and has averaged less than 32 since the start of 2017. Root is hoping his faith will be quickly repaid. But he also hinted that Buttler’s work behind the stumps is not done.
‘Sharing that workload could be key in terms of keeping everyone fresh and ready and at the top of their game,’ he said. ‘I think it’s a great way for those two guys to drive each other’s games forward as well.’
Root’s desire to quash the idea that Bairstow has been appeased for the sake of an easier life is understandable in the circumstances.
The human drama in this game is supposed to centre on Cook, playing his 161st and final Test at a venue that has often been synonymous with goodbyes. The last time England arrived at the oval holding a 3-1 lead, in 2015, they were thrashed by Australia, and Root wants to ensure Cook doesn’t leave on the back of another dead-rubber defeat.
Might the retirement of his predecessor as captain be a distraction?
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Root said. ‘If anything, it acts as a great motivator for the group. The dressing room will be desperate to do everything they can to give him a great send-off.
‘Hopefully he can soak up everything else that comes with this week and go out and deliver on the field. It would be nice for him to start and finish his Test career with a century.
‘You never know, it might be written in the stars.’
With the exception of the wicketkeeping tweak, England field an unchanged side from the one which clinched the series last week.
That means another game for Adil Rashid, despite bowling only 62 overs in four Tests, and no place for Chris Woakes, even though he is fully fit once more after an injury-plagued summer. Moeen Ali will bat at No 3, as he did in the second innings of the last Test — though with no guarantees about his future there — leaving Root to focus on No 4, which is where he likes it.
India, meanwhile, could replace off- spinner Ravichandran Ashwin with slow left-armer Ravindra Jadeja.
Ashwin looked as if he had not shaken off a groin injury in Southampton, where he was out-spun by Moeen, though Jadeja has played only one red-ball match since December.
And there could be a Test debut for 24-year- old middle- order batsman Hanuma Vihari in place of all-rounder Hardik Pandya.
For England, though, the challenge will be to maintain their focus amid a host of competing distractions. As Root is well aware, a 4-1 win against the No 1 team in the world will sit nicely on his captaincy c.v.
‘It would send a really strong statement of where we’re at as a team and where we’re looking to go,’ he said.
And it would send Cook off into the sunset with one final memory.
JOS BUTTLER has been reprimanded by the ECB for showing dissent after he was given out caught off Joe Root’s bowling in lancashire’s County Championship defeat by Yorkshire in July. The batsman dropped his bat and put his head in his hands.