Jonny Bairstow’s crucial counter attack justifies Ben Foakes’ axing
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Come on, let us admit, all ye followers of Ben Foakes. It was mighty reassuring to see Jonny Bairstow stomping out to bat again for England at 176 for five in the first Ashes Test.
England were on the verge of blowing the huge advantage of batting first on the driest of pitches. Their highly attacking form of batting will inevitably involve heavier casualties than careful accumulation would, and they could have imploded if Bairstow had gone cheaply and submissively: 250 all out, followed by two days of Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith, their new strategy in shreds, the series not over but tilting violently Australia’s way.
Yet the man who launched Bazball in Test cricket marched forth and did it all over again. Or, to go back a moment first, for the sake of historical correctness. It was Ben Stokes who published his manifesto during his first innings after being appointed England’s Test captain, when he hit the championship record of 17 sixes for Durham, at Worcester, daring all other cricketers in the land to follow his lead; and it was Bairstow who first suited the action to Stokes’s word in Test cricket.
Bairstow has always bristled but since his horrible injury and left leg operation he has bulked up in the gym into something even more formidable, even tank-like. When, early on, he saw Usman Khawaja back on his heels at mid-on, and embarked on a quick single, neither Khawaja was going to stop him, nor Joe Root at the non-striker’s end. Bairstow was not for turning and going back to his crease.
Suppose Foakes instead had come in at No 7. He would have played himself in carefully with a straight and sober bat. He would have pushed ones, twos and even threes, whereas Bairstow clubbed boundaries. Foakes might well have seen Root to his super century but it would have been a different game, or at least the impact on the Australians would have been less: Root carrying the heavy load, Foakes in support, and orthodox cricket all round, at a normal sort of scoring rate, and no time for a declaration on the first evening.
We always forget about cricketers when they are rehabbing. Nobody clamours for their autograph when they put the headphones on and spend hour after hour on treadmill or bike; and their physios deserve to be remembered too for the hours of patient tedium. And it was a close-run thing in Bairstow’s case: After eight months of recovering, he had time for only two Championship matches, as Yorkshire’s batsman/wicketkeeper, before England recalled him against Ireland.
Even then he did not get a bat. When he came out to bat here, Bairstow had not reached a score of 40 since last August. The confidence of the man in putting his foot down from almost the start, and scoring 78 at a run a ball, speaks magnificently for the culture of the England dressing-room.
Following a bit of a flop in the opening Test at Lord’s last summer against New Zealand, Bairstow smacked 664 runs off 681 balls, at an average of 94, in his remaining games last year. Kevin Pietersen did it now and then for England; Bairstow did it game after game, and this critical one included.
Soon the sixth-wicket stand between Root and Bairstow was recapping their match-winning stand against India last summer on this ground, which enabled England to share the protracted series 2-2. That stand was up there with the partnership between Alastair Cook and Pietersen in Mumbai which turned round another losing series against India: In other words it was as fine as any modern Test partnership for England.
Root had to reverse-scoop his first six, in order to show that he could, but otherwise he was content to let Bairstow seize the initiative, Root scoring 41 while Bairstow made his 78.
Nathan Lyon was to take his four wickets, but at a cost of five runs per over, not his normal three an over against England. Lyon reached his century in his 22nd over, which prompted an even louder rendition of the chant that he was a lesser version of Moeen Ali as an offspinner; nevertheless, bonhomie overflows in the Hollies stand as much as beer, so that for much of the time not a single steward stood between Lyon when he fielded on the boundary and the spectators stacked behind him in the Hollies.
Bairstow did not let Lyon bowl, nor any of Australia’s other bowlers. It was strength of mind and body, and audacity, and acceleration, of which Foakes and his supporters could only dream. For all other players, other than the finest counter-attackers, easing up would have been so much more tempting than doubling down.
The relationship between Root and Bairstow has slowly become friction-less: In the wide open spaces of the Ben Stokes era each has room to breathe, whereas when they started together at Yorkshire they jostled to become top dog. It was inevitable in this smaller county world; and it would have been wrong for either to back down and kow-tow; but it took time before they came to enjoy, without envy, the other’s successes.
Bairstow, for his penultimate stroke, clubbed Lyon to the deep-square boundary. Next, he ran down the parched strip of turf to launch Lyon straight, but missed, and the stumper was stumped. Without that stand of 121 off 140, England would have been too.
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