Jonny Bairstow’s desire to keep wicket in Test cricket remains undimmed as England’s selectors finalise what has been dubbed a “behind-closed-doors training group” in the leadup to the West Indies series next month.
A centrally contracted red-ball cricketer, Bairstow is expected to be among a squad of 30 that is named on Wednesday and will travel to the Ageas Bowl next week for preparations that include a three-day inter-squad warmup match on the main square from 1 July.
Jos Buttler, first choice behind the stumps during the winter, is likely to take the gloves for one of these two England XIs but who performs the role for the opposition will give a decent indication of how Ed Smith’s panel view the current pecking order.
Whether it is Surrey’s Ben Foakes, backup for the aborted Sri Lanka tour, or Bairstow, dropped after a low-key Ashes series by way of runs, remains to be seen, while the Lions wicketkeeper James Bracey is also due to be part of a group that will then be whittled down further before the first Test on 8 July.
It is clear that among them, however, the Yorkshireman with 70 caps and six Test centuries to date is not content with simply targeting the role of specialist batsman that Smith has been nudging him towards of late.
Bairstow said: “I want to play. I’ve always said that. [But] over a period of time, I’ve been really happy with my keeping. That was the bit at the start of my career people questioned but they have stopped speaking about it over the last couple of years.
“My stats are very good. So there’s no reason why [keeping] isn’t an area I want to be coming back into. But I’m not ruling anything out. I want to keep my options very much open. I’m someone who has always been positive about playing.”
England 30-man training group (possible)
Moeen Ali (Worcestershire), James Anderson (Lancashire), Jofra Archer (Sussex), Jonny Bairstow (Yorkshire), Dom Bess (Somerset), James Bracey (Gloucestershire), Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire), Rory Burns (Surrey), Jos Buttler (Lancashire), Zak Crawley (Kent), Sam Curran (Surrey), Joe Denly (Kent), Ben Foakes (Surrey), Keaton Jennings (Lancashire), Dan Lawrence (Essex), Jack Leach (Somerset), Liam Livingstone (Lancashire), Saqib Mahmood (Lancashire), Craig Overton (Somerset), Jamie Overton (Somerset), Ollie Pope (Surrey), Ollie Robinson (Sussex), Joe Root (Yorkshire), Dom Sibley (Warwickshire), Ben Stokes (Durham), Olly Stone (Warwickshire), James Vince (Hampshire), Amar Virdi (Surrey), Chris Woakes (Warwickshire), Mark Wood (Durham)
Bairstow, who heads to Durham on Wednesday to face Ben Stokes and Mark Wood in the nets, has seen the landscape change since he was left out of the New Zealand Test tour and told to “reset” his game, before a solitary outing during the 3-1 win in South Africa.
England had hoped to convince the 30-year-old that his destiny lay up the order given it was their main area of weakness last year and he remains a standout batsman domestically with an average of 51.5 for Yorkshire in the County Championship.
But with Dom Sibley, Zak Crawley, Joe Denly and the fit-again Rory Burns now jostling for places in the top three, the wunderkind Ollie Pope settling in handsomely at No 6 and Essex’s Dan Lawrence on the rise, there is a logjam for Test batting spots.
Buttler on the other hand is yet to nail down the wicketkeeping berth, averaging 17.5 across the two winter series. And so while Bairstow must show he has tightened up a technique that saw him bowled 25 times in Tests since the start of 2016, there are no thoughts of focusing on the white-ball formats in which he excels.
“Red-ball cricket has been something that has been a massive part of my career. There is no reason why that shouldn’t be the case at this moment in time.
“There have always been challenges that have been asked, whether that’s been keeping wicket or batting in certain position and circumstances. I’d like to think I’ve risen to those challenges.”
