by When Jonny Bairstow walks out in Hyderabad on Thursday and Ben Foakes returns to action, it will be the eighth year in a row that the Yorkshireman has been selected as England’s specialist bowler in Test cricket. In nine years, including 2023, he has donned the gloves in a Test.
I would go back to being a specialist batsman at No. 5 on my count, it would be the 28th role change of Bairstow’s Test career – counting every pre-match move up or down the order, and every time he has been given or retired. of the gloves. The only surprise is that Bairstow was never picked to open. He was selected as a specialist batsman anywhere from three to six, and as a keeper-batsman anywhere from four to seven.
England’s task in India is not to put Bairstow on trial again. While Alec Stewart averaged 12 more runs in Test cricket from 1990 to 2003 as a specialist batsman than in cricket, Bairstow averages less – 36.6 compared to 37.6 – when selected to bat. only. One explanation is that without the security provided by the gloves, Bairstow felt closer to the trapdoor.
Sometimes, with good reason. In 2018, after three years as a keeper-batsman, Bairstow was selected as a specialist bat, due to his injured finger. His displeasure at the time was palpable; “That will be the difficult thing, trying to convince Jonny,” said Trevor Bayliss, the head coach at the time. Bairstow had one unhappy Test innings, making a six and a duck at Southampton, then one wicket as a keeper, before being pushed out when he was fit again.
Despite his obvious past preference for wicket-keeping, Bairstow has suggested he has become more comfortable with his role. Earlier this month Bairstow told Sky Sports that he had “not spoken to anyone” about whether or not he would be keeping wicket in India. “As long as I’m over there, as long as I’m fit and shooting, the selection decisions will be out of my hands. But look, I’m pretty happy with where I’m at, whether I’m holding, blocking or whatever.”
The paradox of choice, a term coined by the American psychologist Barry Schwartz, is the notion that as the number of plausible options increases, so does our ability to make the wrong choice. For example, students have been found to write better essays when they have six, rather than 30, to choose from. “Trop de choix tue le choix,” the French say: too much choice kills choice.
All too often, this was Bairstow’s fate. England had so many options on where to use Bairstow that they often made bad choices.
Stewart admitted that, because he was proud to be sticking with England, ideally he would have preferred to be deployed as a specialist batsman, opening. In the 1990s, Stewart’s ambition was sacrificed to cover English’s weakness: a dearth of reliable runs from other keepers.
Bairstow’s selection has also been compromised, but in the opposite direction. Because of his enjoyment of the dual role of keeper-batsman, he played in an under-performing age in English batting. England long felt that Bairstow’s average of 50.2 for Yorkshire, five runs more than Joe Root, showed what he could achieve as a specialist batsman. That all five years of Bairstow’s Test retention has come in the first innings of the match, before he was behind the stumps, gives an idea of what he could achieve without the burden of the gloves . And so, despite his good returns as a keeper, England have continuously tried to get more runs from him by picking him as a specialist batsman.
In 2022, for the first time, this notion was confirmed. Ahead of Stokes’ first Test as permanent captain in 2022, Brendon McCullum told Bairstow to “go out and hit him” at number five; For the first time as a specialist batsman, Bairstow was able to bat with freedom as a wicketkeeper.
Four centuries in five innings, starting with the coruscating 136 at Trent Bridge, an important moment in the birth of Bazball, was the result. Under this current management, and after a brutal post-World Cup fitness regime, there is reason to believe, in a set role at No. 5, that Bairstow can do his best again as a specialist batsman. Now, McCullum and Stokes have to convince Bairstow, this time, that he is being moved for his own benefit – not everyone else’s.
34 years old, and after a tough recovery from his broken leg, he would be determined to say that Bairstow’s Test future is as a clean batsman; The history of his career, and the knowledge that Brook will also be looking to return to number five, suggests that it would be wise to be less certain. In a strange way, it would be fitting that when Bairstow plays his 100th Test in Dharamsala at the end of the series, he is not so sure what role England will ask him to play in his 101st.
