Bairstow Shows It's How Many, Not How, You Score

Bairstow Shows It's How Many, Not How, You Score

- Peter Hayter

Jonny Bairstow biffed the ball from off-spinner Ashley Nurse through the covers, bustled through for two of the three runs he needed to complete his first ODI century, slipped when turning for the third and finally belted down the other end to make it.

Lots of words beginning with B there, none of them beautiful.

And that is the beauty of Bairstow; in white-ball cricket as well as the Test format he has always known his value as a batsman was about content and hang the style and finally, after his man-of-the match innings in the first ODI against West Indies at Old Trafford, the penny must surely have dropped for England, too.

You suspect that had his great friend and admirer Joe Root been running the ODI side, it would have happened long ago, but the decision to retain Bairstow in the position at the top of the order he took over from Jason Roy during the ICC Champions Trophy, may prove to be highly significant to England’s chances of winning the 2019 World Cup.

Bairstow’s supporters, Root among them, need no reminding that he made his ODI debut as long as six years ago and that, since then, he has played just 28 matches.

Why so few?

Perhaps one answer lies in the identity of the man he has recently replaced.

When, after the horror show of the 2015 World Cup, England’s ODI skipper Eoin Morgan spoke of the kind of batsmen he wanted to fill his new team with, he offered the following thought.

“I want players who have a point of difference about them, who have something that can change a game, or something that someone else doesn’t have.”