Bairstow Hits Back At Critics 'Waiting For England To Fail'

Chris Stocks talks to a batsman disappointed with the comments of former England players and the changes in pitches for the tournament

Jonny Bairstow is never afraid to voice his opinion and after a week which has seen England widely criticised following back-to-back World Cup defeats by Sri Lanka and

Australia he has chosen to fight back. With must-win matches against India

and New Zealand to come, starting at Edgbaston on Sunday, most fans would rather see England do their talking on the field.

However, the stinging criticism from former players Kevin Pietersen and Michael Vaughan appears to have given Eoin Morgan and his squad extra motivation ahead of those crunch clashes.

Pietersen, via Twitter, accused Morgan of looking “scared” when facing Australia’s Mitchell Starc at Lord’s on Tuesday. Vaughan then piled in the following day on BBC 5 Live, saying: “Unless they can adapt quickly over the course of the next few days, this is looking like turmoil for England. We’ve had some bad World Cups and I’ve been involved in a couple of atrocious World Cups. If they’re not careful, this could turn out to be top of the tree.”

Asked if he was annoyed by Pietersen’s Tweet, Bairstow replied: “I’ve not even seen it to be quite honest. I was on the radio this morning, I was surprised with a clip of Vaughan’s comments at 8.30. Bloody hell. That’s pretty rich.

“People now are paid to have an opinion, so they’ve got to have an opinion. Because we’ve done so well, any opportunity for someone to see we’ve lost two games, they were always going to jump on it.

“People were waiting for us to fail. They are not willing us on to win, in many ways, they are waiting for you to get that loss, so they can jump on your throat. It’s a typical English thing to do, in every sport.”