Posted by We once joked that England’s plan for Jonny Bairstow was to keep him guessing. It always seemed like the aim was to treat him as inconsistently as possible to keep him on his toes. After scoring four hundreds and a fifty in five innings last summer, it seemed safe to assume that he had made the number five spot his own. And then along came Harry Brook.
Cricketers and coaches often talk of ‘role clarity’. Only Moeen Ali can really rival Bairstow for role opacity.
Remember all those times England thought Bairstow should keep wicket? Or all those times they decided he should be freed from the wicketkeeping gloves?
Remember when he was inked in at number three? Remember when he was a very successful number six? Remember when he was a white ball specialist?
But then came the summer of 2022 and a run of form so pure and perfect that everyone immediately agreed you didn’t want to mess with this. This was Bairstow’s thing: batting at five, making incredible hundreds.
Let’s recap…
In Nottingham, against New Zealand, he made 136 off 92 balls in the fourth innings as England chased down 299 to win.
In Leeds, against the same opposition, he made 162 off 157 balls after England had been 21-4 and 55-6. He then made 71 not out off 44 balls in the second innings as England chased 296 to win.
In Birmingham, against India, he made 106 after England had been 44-3 and 83-5. Then he made 114 not out in the second innings as England chased 378 to win.
That first innings, in particular, was a herculean effort; just purely and simply one of the great Test innings, even if he hadn’t then followed it with three more hundreds and an unbeaten fifty in his next four innings.
(Speaking of Herculean, did you know that Elton John’s middle name is ‘Hercules’? What we especially love about this is that Elton was of course born Reginald Kenneth Dwight. That means that in 1972, when he embarked on changing his name, he thought to himself, “My middle name should definitely be Hercules.” And then at no point between first thinking that his middle name should be Hercules and filing the paperwork to make his middle name Hercules did he subsequently think, “Actually maybe Hercules is a bit much.” We’re pretty confident he still thinks it’s a good choice, particularly now that he’s Sir Elton Hercules John.)
Quite understandably, Bairstow couldn’t quite maintain that incredible run of form, following it up with 0, 18 and 49 against South Africa. With hindsight, failing to maintain that incredible run of form was a mistake.
Because at the time of writing, nine innings into his Test career (with one still incomplete), Bairstow’s stand-in at number five, Harry Brook, is maintaining that incredible run of form. He has made four hundreds and three fifties and is averaging over 100 with a strike-rate of 99.38. He has made heavy runs in both Pakistan and New Zealand, which are pretty different places, batting-wise. That piece we wrote last week about how he could be stopped has aged like an already-on-the-turn avocado.
When Jonny Bairstow is back to full fitness, is one or other of these men being left out of the England Test team?
No.
If Brook and Bairstow are both fit, both will be in the England Test team. That means one of them will be batting somewhere other than five. One man has batted flawlessly and only ever at number five. The other man has a lot of experience of trying to make other spots his own.
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I doubt the concept of ‘maybe that’s a bit much’ has ever troubled Elton John.
Would dearly love to learn about every single occasion it ever did.
As it happens, a pair of my eccentric friends visited Elton John in “a bit much” circumstances, the story of which one of them wrote up in his e-book, My Good Friend. The relevant story is Chapter 6, entitled Elton John & The Exploding Car Catastrophe.
I tried to review the Kindle book when it first came out with predictably hilarious results – see below, where you might enjoy my rejection story and also click through to see (or even purchase) Wellbrook’s e-book.
https://ianlouisharris.com/2019/01/01/my-good-friend-by-david-wellbrook-starting-my-new-year-with-a-rejection-an-appeal-and-kurt-denial-1-january-2019/
Last weekend, Daisy and I had dinner with Awesome Simo, who is an avid Watford FC and Elton fan, but Simo’s anecdotes about Elton have not, to date, ever had a “maybe that’s a bit much” element to them.
Management may struggle to make the case to drop a player who averages more than Bradman at a strike rate higher that Afridi’s. Just sack Zak, when Jonny’s back (as in returned)?
Tabloid newspapers warn selectors to drop Crawley or face Ashes defeat.
‘Back Zak and crack!’
Thanks very much.
Fine work.
A more pressing concern, though, is surely that Joe Root hasn’t made a test hundred since last night. Shuggly pegs and all that…
It was a pretty classic example of “Joe Root also made a hundred”.
You don’t get many examples of “[X] also made 150”, but the current match is throwing out all kinds of interesting feats. Joe’s batting on Day Two (which Daisy and I watched on TV in real time) was really quite special. Ollie Pope’s catches (which we have just watched on catch up) differently but no less special.
Maybe number 5 has come good, the batters are just the medium channeling its energy?
‘I wouldn’t have enforced the follow-on’, says Sir A Cook.
If there’s one former England captain whose likely decisions in different scenarios we don’t really need spelled out to us…
In truth Cook has been shockingly bad in every way on the BT sofa. Daisy says that he looks and sounds half asleep, from 9:00 in the evening until the slightly more forgivable wee small hours (which we have tended to see on catch up).
The nadir of Cook’s punditry this morning was to mumble “Ducky” as a hideous nicknaming of Ben Duckett.
Woakes and Finn were both a fair bit better than Cook, but the latter is clearly deemed to be senior and therefore does most of the talking.
Similarly the “on site” team of Gower and Mitchell – the former these days sounding like an old military bore, ceaselessly droning on.
Unlike his playing days, Gower was always best as an anchor.
In other Harry Brook news, we were a bit disappointed this morning when looking at his bowling on catch up.
None of your Dan Lawrence-like frog-in-a-blender filthy action. It looks like proper upright well-coached medium pace delivered sensibly and purposefully, albeit at 65-70 mph. It’s the sort of stuff I like to face in charity matches and/or the nets.
But our disappointment turned to joy when he bowled two filthy deliveries to Williamson at the end of one over – the first a ludicrously short loopy thing – the second an I’ll-directed slider down the leg side which strangled a feather and got the superstar out.
A small victory for filth after all.
Ah, ‘A Small Victory For Filth’. One of my favourite X-rated films.