Few people have embodied the excitement of English cricket’s revolution better than all-action batsman Jonny Bairstow.
In the second extract in our serialization of a new book on Bazball, co-written by Mail Sport writer and Wisden Editor Lawrence Booth, we go back to 2022, when the Yorkshireman became England’s star man in a golden summer – and offer a fascinating insight into what makes him tick…
After five Tests at No 6 or 7 in Australia and the Caribbean, where he hit centuries in Sydney and Antigua, Bairstow was playing for Punjab Kings at the IPL when he took a call from [England coach Brendon] McCullum: ‘You’re batting at five. We want you to go out and whack it. Can’t wait to catch up with you.’ Bairstow places an imaginary phone on its receiver. ‘The clarity was really helpful.’
He had often been regarded by team-mates as a destructive player who needed handling a bit differently. It was too simplistic to ascribe everything to the tragic suicide of his father, David, when Jonny was eight. Equally, there was no doubt he craved reassurance. To have become, like David, a wicketkeeper for Yorkshire and England, added to the poignancy of his story, but it also left him more vulnerable to the ebb and flow of selection than a bowler or a batsman.
Stokes had long grasped how to make him tick, and had often batted well with him, not least during a stand of 399 in 57 overs against South Africa at Cape Town in 2015–16. Stokes made the quickest double-century in English history, Bairstow an emotional first Test hundred, looking to the skies as he thought of his dad. It was Bazball in the days when McCullum was still playing for New Zealand. Stokes also knew, in the words of one insider, that Bairstow sometimes needed ‘an arm round him and a kick up the a***’.
After the Lord’s win against New Zealand, he praised him in the press conference for an innings of 16, which seemed strange at the time, but later made sense. Earlier in the game, Bairstow had returned despondent to the dressing-room, having been bowled aiming a big shot in possibly the last over of a long spell from fast bowler Kyle Jamieson. Convention said Bairstow should have seen him off. But Stokes was having none of it. ‘If you’re in that position again, do it again,’ he told him. ‘That’s exactly what I want to see from you. It’s all about putting pressure back on opponents. If you’re in the same situation next week, I want you to do the same thing.’ And next week, in Nottingham, that’s exactly what Bairstow did.
A call from England coach Brendon McCullum saw Jonny Bairstow moved up the batting order and encouraged to ‘go out and whack it’
Bairstow scored his first test 100 against South Africa in Cape Town in 2016 – an emotional moment after the tragic death of his father
His all-action style has become a vital component of England’s aggressive approach under McCullum
‘At Lord’s, I went about it the same way, but it just didn’t come off,’ says Bairstow. ‘Trent Bridge was next. I didn’t get many in the first innings, but the mindset hadn’t changed.’
He embarks on a string of mixed metaphors, mirroring the chaos wrought by his batting. ‘It just needed someone to take the bull by the horns and unleash everything we’ve seen over the last 12 months. The capabilities have always been there. It’s about taking the harness off, unbuckling the seat belt and letting it fly. And then it was like a snowball effect. Can we bat this way? Yes, we can, so we’ll go again and go again and go again. It had that ripple effect throughout the group.’
So it was that, on the last afternoon of the second Test, Jonny Bairstow became Bazball’s first standard-bearer. Set 299 to wrap up the series with a game to spare, England had reached tea on 139 for four. Bairstow, after scores of 1, 16 and 8, had 43.
The first thought of the old regime would have been to ensure against defeat, guarantee at least a share of the series, and start again five days later at Headingley. But the chat during the interval was simple: England were going for it. If 160 runs in a session sounded a lot, the irregular shape of the Trent Bridge boundaries offered some tempting areas, especially towards Bridgford Road, a short cross-batted thrash from the Pavilion End.
Bazball: The Inside Story of a Test Cricket Revolution by Lawrence Booth and Nick Hoult will be published by Bloomsbury on Oct 26
In the dressing-room, Bairstow chose a novel method of pumping himself up. Thinking he was alone, he addressed a mirror with gusto. ‘Jonathan Marc Bairstow!’ he roared. ‘This is your day, your chance to show what you can do.’ But the Trent Bridge dressing-room is L-shaped, and spacious enough for a lone teammate to be sitting unnoticed round the corner. Finally, Bairstow spotted him. ‘That’s Marc with a C!’ he boomed, and marched off to slay New Zealand.
Out in the middle, Stokes noticed ‘those Jonny eyes’, and offered some advice. Bairstow remembers it: ‘“It’s a short boundary, so hit it up.” There was no negative thought about trying to contain and hit the ball down. Just hit it into the stand because that’s probably the safer option anyway.’
The final session was carnage, with Bairstow blasting 93 runs from 44 balls, including seven sixes as New Zealand repeatedly dropped short. Stokes played a virtuoso second fiddle – 75 from 70, with four sixes of his own – and the remaining runs came at ten an over.
With Trent Bridge throwing open the gates for free, and Bairstow blazing away in the sunshine, the atmosphere was more like a carnival than a Test match. It chimed perfectly with England’s desire to entertain. For the first time since 2005, the summer Michael Vaughan’s team regained the Ashes after 16 years in Australian hands, cricket was beginning to feel like the people’s sport again.
Cock of the walk, Bairstow held a barbeque at his home in North Leeds before the final Test at Headingley. Those present say he was the perfect host, buying in the best cuts of meat, and supplying cigars and whisky into the small hours.
Even so, traces of insecurity remained. After his heroics in Nottingham, Bairstow surprised McCullum by asking how he should bat from now on. ‘I’ve never heard a bloke get 130 off 90 balls a week before, then ask his head coach: “How should I go out and play?”’ said McCullum. ‘I told him: “Go and get your Sudoku book, come and sit next to me, and shut up. Whatever you did last week, go out and do it again.”’
Bairstow produced a memorable display in the second Test against New Zealand at Trent Bridge last year – becoming Bazball’s first standard bearer
Working in tandem with captain Ben Stokes (middle), Bairstow has helped cricket feel like the ‘people’s sport’ again
On he went. Against India, he kept England in the game with a first-innings century after they had slipped to 83 for five in reply to 416. With him for the first part of the recovery was Billings, who had his own take on the Jonny eyes. ‘You can’t talk to him when he gets into that mood, because he’s glazed over,’ he says. Billings adopts a Yorkshire accent: ‘He is “Jonathan Marc Bairstow”. He gets into this trance. I’ve played with Jonny a long time now, and you just keep pumping his tyres up: “How well are you hitting that?” He’s just never happy, is he?’
India’s cause may not have been helped when Kohli engaged Bairstow in tetchy conversation, prompting the umpires to intervene. ‘There was a bit of banter flying around,’ says Billings. ‘I was chuckling away. The worst decision you can possibly make is to chirp Jonny Bairstow. He went redder and redder, as if he was saying: “I’m going to show him.” Which he absolutely did. I love a chirp, but there are certain players where you think: just don’t do it! It wasn’t one of Virat’s best moments.’
When Bairstow walked back to the dressing-room after supervising England’s second-innings pursuit of 378 with another century, he was still drawing sustenance from Kohli’s sledging. ‘When will they f*****g learn?’
Bazball: The Inside Story of a Test Cricket Revolution by Lawrence Booth and Nick Hoult will be published by Bloomsbury on October 26
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