BAIRSTOW IS BACK
Ballance pays the price as Jonny gets the England call
ENOUGH was enough. Clearly something had to give while England’s top order continued to tumble and the selectors’ response yesterday was to send Gary Ballance back to Yorkshire and replace him with a team-mate in Jonny Bairstow.
Bairstow returns to the highest stage as an older and wiser figure than the batsman who looked so uncomfortable in the last of his 14 Tests at the hands of Mitchell Johnson and company in the final instalment of that 5- 0 humiliation.
His return to Headingley and the coaching of Jason Gillespie has eventually led to a county season so prolific that he is averaging 100 in the First Division and has hit a double century and four other hundreds this year.
More importantly, new England coach Trevor Bayliss would have seen him take New Zealand apart to win this season’s one-day international at Durham when he stepped in as a late replacement for the injured Jos Buttler.
‘I’m really pleased with the way I’m striking the ball at the moment and hopefully that will continue,’ said Bairstow last night. ‘ We go there next week with a lot of confidence and hopefully we can put on a show. It was only a week ago that we were beating Australia and I think a lot of the criticism since then has been harsh.
‘It will be a completely different challenge to what I’ve faced this season in the county game and I’m well aware of that.’
Bayliss will give Bairstow full l i cense to play i n his natural attacking way now as he strongly believes in the modern method that sees one- day international cricket influencing the Te s t game l i ke never before.
Bayliss, who wants to create a culture of self-reliance among his players, will have noted with interest the comments of his fellow Australian and Yorkshire coach Gillespie about the improvement of a 25-year-old whose international future was in jeopardy af t er his suffering in Sydney.
‘Jonny is in a special place right now,’ said Gillespie. ‘His average has just tipped 100 and I know that, given an opportunity, now he will take it. It is important that those who don’t see much county cricket don’t pipe up with opinions based on past experience because we’re dealing with a different beast right now,’ added Gillespie, writing in The Guardian. ‘The Yorkshire coaches, myself included, made a pact that we would not speak to him about his method and instead judge him solely on his returns. ‘In the 18 months since his last Test appearance his technique has not been brought up. Ultimately we have backed Jonny to take responsibility for his own game and the results are there for all to see.’ Bairstow will bat five in the third Investec Test at Edgbaston, with England declaring t heir hand yesterday by stating that Ian Bell will move up to three on his home ground while Joe Root is promoted to four. That is a significant move for Bell, who clearly has been told to stand up and be counted as a senior figure in a position that, against Australia and New Zealand, has proved too hot for Ballance to handle.
Bell made three Ashes hundreds in England two years ago but since his century against West Indies in Antigua earlier this year he has struggled desperately and does not seem to know now whether he should stick or twist. He has played 22 of his 112 Tests at No3 and has only made two hundreds there — admittedly one of them a double — but it will be how Bell gets on at first drop now that will determine whether his England career is coming to an end at 33.
The one i ssue that will be resolved once England get to Birmingham next week is whether this is the right time for Bayliss to bring in a second spinner in Adil Rashid, as he has said he wants to do at some stage in this series.