WE’RE A CRAIC TEAM BAIRSTOW: I love opening with Roy... our partnership is based on trust, respect and having a lot of fun
JONNY BAIRSTOW has revealed his hard-hitting, high- scoring, opening partnership with Jason Roy is based on trust, respect and having a good craic!
It is a slightly different mantra to that of the England team badge in which the Three Lions stand for courage, unity and respect.
But whatever words they are using they are working, because e the team, energised by their r extraordinary opening pair, are e firing on all cylinders at just the e right time.
They head into a first World d Cup semi-final in 27 years in n rude health and confidence is s high that Bairstow and Roy y (right), who first encountered d each other in their teens, can n take the partnership to the e highest level of all.
“The respect we have for each h other is huge,” said Bairstow, who has 462 runs in the tournament so far.
“The partnership is really y good, we’ve played against each h other since we were 15 years s old, at Oundle when there was s a Yorkshire/Surrey competition n and he had the bleached blonde hair and everything.
“He smashed it then and he smashes it now. We’ve grown up playing together and batted for a number of years together r either with me in the middle e order or up the top.
“Batting with Jase is just a good craic. That’s what it is. It is genuinely good fun, pretty relaxed, and communication is important all the way through.
“We just keep each other going, it’s nice, it’s relaxed, and we just try and crack on and do what we do.
“Of course, you’ve got to have trust in each other, in an opening partnership, I’m sure that [Andrew] Strauss and [Sir Alastair] Cooky were the same when they opened in Tests, and [Matthew] Hayden and [ Justin] Langer were the same.
“Along the way there’s going to be ups and downs but throughout it you’ve got to have trust within yourselves.”
And to think that Bairstow initially replaced Roy in the team, in a move that would almost certainly have seen the Surrey man watch this World Cup from the sidelines, had Alex Hales not been involved a series of off-field controversies over the past two years.
Roy was left out of the Champions Trophy semi-final team in 2017 following a string of low scores, and cut a forlorn figure at Cardiff either side of the defeat to eventual champions Pakistan.
He has been a positive, dominant figure in the middle at this tournament, and even when he suffered a hamstring injury it failed to knock him off his stride.
England have also landed on their ideal combination of bowlers, but the medics are working overtime to ensure that Jofra Archer, Mark Wood and Chris Woakes can keep going. Their bodies are being stretched to the limit, but an eight-day gap to visit family and friends ahead of their semi-final date should ensure they are all good to go on Thursday.
And England will be playing on a ground where they have won their last 10 matches in all formats.
Bairstow said: “At Edgbaston the atmosphere is cracking.
“You have to enjoy it, and there is going to be more of the same for a World Cup semi- final. Everyone will be excited about this week.
“It is hard to say you are peaking, one good ball and you’re out, but confidence is high as we’ve had two really good performances to stand us in good stead and hopefully we can produce another.
“This is why you start playing the game as kids. I remember the 2005 Ashes and no one will ever forget that or the guys who won it. This is our opportunity to make some history.”