Bairstow confident in pitch, and England’s ‘fight’
The pair of Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow have amassed a table-topping 772 runs in seven innings at 110.28 in 2016. © BCCI
Jonny Bairstow has never had it so good in Test cricket. The England wicketkeeper-batsman is now perched atop the list of leading run-scorers this calendar year, with 1217 runs midway though this, his 14th game. He is averaging 64.05, and has already struck three hundreds and six fifties, with a potential seven further innings remaining before the curtain comes down on 2016.
He is also the most prolific catcher behind the stumps with 60 dismissals in 2016 at the end of the third day of the second Test at the ACA-VDCA Stadium on Saturday (November 19). Only Mark Boucher, the South African who had 65 dismissals in 1998, has had more victims as a wicketkeeper in a calendar year. That record too should be in Bairstow’s pocket by December 20, the last day of the fifth Test against India, if his bowlers create enough opportunities.
Bairstow, the ginger-haired right-hander from Bradford, also loves batting with Ben Stokes, the Christchurch-born left-hand batsman who loves giving the ball a mighty wallop. This year alone, the pair has amassed a table-topping 772 runs in seven innings at 110.28, including a stand of 399 – a sixth-wicket record in Tests – against South Africa in Cape Town in January.
“To be honest, it’s quite difficult to put a specific thing on it,” he said of what makes him and Stokes such a productive combine. “We complement each other, obviously left and right-handed helps, we rotate the strike pretty well. With a combination of calming each other down – hard to believe when there are two redheads out there – but it’s just a combination of everything. It just seems to work nicely whether sometimes you just have to let him go like in Cape Town or sometimes it’s a case of reining each other in. All the way through, the chat and the confidence works quite nicely.”
Just before he took the batting crease on Saturday morning, Bairstow picked up an injury and temporarily returned to the dressing-room, but was ready to resume battle with England on 103 for 5 in reply to India’s 455. “I tripped up, made myself look like a wally,” he laughed at himself. “I hurt my knee a bit. I turned round and went back. My boot got lodged in the turf and I twisted my knee but I’m fine. It was sore, it’s one of those things. I don’t think it affected me too much, just a bit of a pain in the backside. Or the knee!”
Stokes, with 70, and Bairstow, 53, had set the example for England when their chase unravels sometime tomorrow, he agreed. “There’s definitely runs to be had on this pitch. When it comes to when we bat, whether it be tomorrow afternoon or evening or whenever that might be, there’s definitely runs to be had on it. That gives us confidence. Everyone concedes there’s uneven bounce on the pitch so when it comes to that, if the ball’s got your name on it, it’s got your name on it.
“We’ve shown we can bat long periods on subcontinental pitches and score runs. It was only last week we scored 500 runs. Out here, when we come to bat, we still got to score the runs because at the end of the day it’s a run chase and that’s the exciting part. We’ve got people within our batting line-up that are able to score runs, however many that may be. We could commence tomorrow morning and take four wickets and we’re in different position altogether.
“We needed to show some fight, we need to show it all the way for the rest of the game and the rest of the tour, whether it’s the first innings or the fourth innings. Fight comes in many different ways. Fight with the bat, fight with the ball and in the field. I think in the field if we can create a few more opportunities, that’s something me as a ‘keeper am always looking for guys to be in the right positions. We showed some nice fight today and taking three-for in the evening session was a strong comeback from us within today’s passage of play.”
Bairstow was understandably coy when asked what he thought was a chasable target on this surface. “It’s like asking anything, isn’t it?” he countered. “We’ll try and chase down whatever’s set. I think it’s important for us to make it as difficult for India to score runs at the rate they want to score runs at. The longer we can delay the amount of runs they score I think puts us in a better position. So tomorrow morning, we try our hardest to restrict the amount of runs and take a few wickets. We know it’s definitely hard on that pitch with our bowlers.”
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