Seething Jonny ready to take out his anger on Aussies
ENGLAND expect a furious Jonny Bairstow to step out in front of his raucous home crowd tomorrow and take out his simmering anger on Australia.
Bairstow is still ticking over the controversial dismissal on the last day of the second Test which led to unprecedented scenes of revolt at Lord’s, even among MCC members.
It capped a difficult week for Bairstow which started with Australian commentator Jim Maxwell calling him overweight, continued when he carried a Just Stop oil protester off the Lord’s outfield and then culminated with the stumping by Alex Carey that ignited the Ashes.
Now, according to his team-mate and fellow Yorkshireman Joe Root, Bairstow has that look in his eyes and determination to put right his sense of injustice at the hands of Pat Cummins and his Australia side when hostilities are renewed at Headingley.
‘You can bet your bottom dollar he will have the bit between his teeth,’ said Root, with debate over the morality of Australia’s refusal to recall Bairstow at Lord’s on Sunday still raging. ‘He does thrive off things like this. You will be able to spot his mood a mile off.’
Root recalled an incident at Edgbaston last year when Bairstow hit two centuries against India and led England’s record Test run- chase as the perfect example of the threat the keeper-batsman poses when he feels the cricketing fates are conspiring against him.
‘I don’t think he took it great. I don’t think anyone would, would they?’ said Root. ‘There is always something like this in these big series and this one would have to involve Jonny. Go back to Edgbaston last year. Someone said something to him — I think it was Virat Kohli — and it brought the best out of him. Let’s hope that happens again.’
The rapid turnaround between the second Test and this third match — that England must win to have any chance of regaining the Ashes — has done nothing to alter their belief that they would have done things differently had they been in Australia’s position.
‘We would’ve called the batsman back. That is quite obvious,’ said Root. ‘Everyone is entitled to deal with these things in their own way but as a team that is not how we want to play our cricket. We want to leave a certain legacy.
‘Jonny was not trying to gain an advantage. It wasn’t like he was at the nonstriker’s end trying to sneak a run or batting out of his crease to take modes of dismissal out of the game. So yes he felt hard done by. And I don’t think anyone will be leaving their crease here!’
England’s challenge now is to channel their sense of wrongdoing and use it to their advantage in front of a Headingley crowd likely to be at fever pitch after Lord’s. For that the former England captain will call on the example set on Sunday by his successor.
‘You just have to look at the way Ben played off the back of what happened to Jonny,’ said Root. ‘ He is the GoAT (Greatest of All Time) in that type of situation. A younger Ben Stokes might have let his emotions override what he needed to do but look at how he got himself into the zone.
‘So we have to use all the fuel but do it in a controlled manner. That doesn’t mean not to show any emotion because that might be how to get someone like Jonny going. Everyone will deal with this in different ways. But we mustn’t get too carried away with it all.’
A 2-0 deficit after two games leaves England’s hopes hanging by a thread in what was the most eagerly anticipated Ashes since 2005 but Root believes the events of Sunday, when Stokes smashed 155 on the back of the Bairstow affair, provide hope.
‘This does feel very different,’ he added. ‘I look at the games and I feel we played all the cricket in the first one and Australia snuck in the back door and won the game. And we played some really good stuff last week, so you are looking at very small margins.
‘I’m sure Australia will argue they managed the big moments better than us but it doesn’t feel like we are miles away. We’ve got nothing to lose now. We’ll throw everything at it. And I think it’s time for us to start writing our script.’
■ ENGLAND fast bowler Josh Tongue is set to join Nottinghamshire next season after having a medical yesterday. Tongue, 25, has been with Worcestershire since he was six. Meanwhile, the ECB have announced that England will play West Indies and Sri Lanka in a pair of three-Test home series next summer. They will then face Australia again in T20 and ODI series in September 2024, having defended their T20 World Cup title in the US and Caribbean in June.