But for a slip on the golf course, a cruel twist of fate that resulted in a cruel twist of the left ankle and a rather repulsive composite fracture, Jonny Bairstow could be a fifth member of the England team with two medals as a winner of the white ball World Cup. As things stand, the Yorkshire man is entering this T20 World Championship defense and is still trying to extend the 50-year-old title for which he was so important.
Scheduled to open in Australia two years ago, just for this incident at the Tee to offer a throwback to Alex Hales, Bairstow has now been reused as the brand new n ° 4 alongside Jos Buttler in the top three after the quick arrivals of Phil Salt and Will Jacks.
“I got health issue and that’s part of life,” the 34-year-old said philosophically as England arrived in sweltering Barbados. “But I want to be part of winning another world cup for England. And it doesn’t matter where I hit. It’s a compliment that Jos [Buttler] and Motty [Matthew Mott] think I have the skills to hit par fours.”
The logic seems pretty solid, and Mott, the head coach, explains that Bairstow’s experience and flexibility – who can practically function as openers in a power play in matter the first wickets fall, but also against the Spin in the middle Overs-were behind the call. In the Caribbean, where the batsmen calculated at six with the help of the trade winds could well be in the foreground, England thinks that these Popeye-type forearms are match winners.
The question now is whether Bairstow has his spinach after an epic winter in India – or maybe it should be Callaloo in this part of the world -. As part of England’s sloppy 50-over World Cup defence before Christmas, the seven-week trial tour earlier this year and then the two-month Indian Premier League with the Punjab Kings, he’s had a handful of nights in his own bed in the last six months.month. Even for a resilient character like the man you call YJB, it may have only been exhausting.
The form was fleeting during this period when he lived out of the suitmatter, with two half-centuries in 21 innings for England and another Score of over 50 during the IPL (although still batting at 158). It was a stunning knock, it must be said that Bairstow did not like 108 from 48 balls as Punjab chased down an foolish 262 in Kolkata. Typical of the man, he came when the talk about needing a break started swirling.
David Rudder, the great Calypsonian, describes his Steelband as “the engine room… The soul of Carnival” and in The England T20 team, after these first three explosives, it is Bairstow at No. 4 and Harry Brook at No. 5. while the team is theoretically designed to hit deep with Chris Jordan at N ° 8, Moeen Ali and Liam Livingstone could be higher at home than their “finishers” He puts more emphasis on the presence of one or both Yorkshireans at the gone.
A glimpse of the music they could make over the next four weeks came the night before England flew to Bridgetown, Bairstow and Brook, swinging an unbroken Stand of 46 from 28 balls to seal a 2-0 win in the heat-up series against Pakistan at the Oval (the relevance of which is up for debate As Bairstow bluntly said: “We want to take the games to the end.”
Unlike Bairstow, Brook has had some time at home after not found the trial tour of India due to the gone of her grandmother Pauline, a long-time follower of her Cricket. Brook, 25, looked fitter than ever and looked big at the start of the county championship – 388 runs at 77 and a strike rate of 94.8 – but although he was T20 World champion two years ago, he is still consolidating in England’s white ball teams.
