Jonny Bairstow

Jonny Bairstow player profile

Combative wicketkeeper-batter Jonny Bairstow was a force in England's upper and middle orders across formats in the 2010s. With Jason Roy, he formed a peerless opening partnership in ODIs that helped deliver a rejuvenated England a first World Cup title in 2019.

A talented young all-round sportsman, Bairstow trialled with Leeds United as a right back, but it was cricket he stuck with. From Yorkshire's Under-15s, he moved to their 2nd XI and their Academy sides, then represented England Under-17s, and eventually signed a full-time contract with Yorkshire, following in the footsteps of his father, David.

Bairstow's keeping rarely found great acclaim, though he worked intensively with Bruce French, England's wicketkeeping coach, to become more proficient. The debate about whether he might be better off playing as a specialist batter was never quite silenced through his career, and he took the gloves for just over half his 100 Tests, alternating with a succession of other keepers, including Jos Buttler, Ben Foakes and Ollie Pope.

He made an impressive first-class debut against Somerset in June 2009, and soon secured his place in the first XI. After 17 scores of 50-plus in his first 34 matches, he made his maiden first-class hundred, a double, against Nottinghamshire in the 2011 summer. During that brilliant innings he and recently retired England bowler Ryan Sidebottom put on a massive ninth-wicket partnership in a pleasing illustration of the passing of talent between Yorkshire generations - given the two men's fathers were among the county's best-loved former players.

Bairstow made his England white-ball debuts in September that season, hitting an unbeaten 41 off 21 balls in his first ODI against India in Cardiff, though he had a hard time of it on the tough India tour that followed. After a strong start to the 2012 first-class season, he was handed a call-up to the Test squad to face West Indies, though it was another tough initiation, against the hostile short bowling of Kemar Roach. Bairstow played against South Africa at Lord's after Kevin Pietersen was dropped in extraordinary circumstances, and responded magnificently, making 95 and 54 to lead fightbacks in each innings, though England lost.

He had a dismal time in the T20 World Cup that winter, averaging just 9.50, and only played one game apiece in the Test series against India and New Zealand that followed. During the back-to-back home and away Ashes in 2013, he averaged a meagre 23 and didn't quite inspire confidence as a replacement for the out-of-form Matt Prior. But the 2015 season marked a renaissance: Bairstow struck 1108 runs in the County Championship at 92.33, allowed by Yorkshire to play as he saw fit. Nothing was more emphatic than his 366-run partnership with Tim Bresnan at Chester-le-Street. In England colours, there was a combative 83 not out against New Zealand at Chester-le-Street after a late summons. Apart from an initiative-seizing 74 in a partnership of 173 with Joe Root in the Ashes Test where Stuart Broad knocked Australia cold for 60 all out, the next two Test series again produced desultory results for Bairstow.

Come Cape Town early in 2016, he made a breakthrough 150, his first Test hundred, where again he played second fiddle to a more dominant partner, this time Ben Stokes, with whom he put on 399. His second Test century was reserved for his home crowd, against Sri Lanka: 140, batting at No. 7, out of 298, where, on a challenging surface, he played with a certainty not given to others. England's top order was repeatedly found wanting in Test cricket around this time, but the belligerence of Bairstow and Co down the order often dug them out of holes. Another hundred at Lord's followed, he averaged over 52 in seven innings against Pakistan at home, and he produced his first two ODI hundreds against West Indies at the tail-end of the summer.

But even as Bairstow became increasingly integral to England's white-ball fortunes, vagaries of selection hurt his Test chances. He scored an Ashes hundred on the 2017-18 tour and another in Christchurch a few months later, but pushed up the order to cover for deficiencies in others, his form dipped; he lost the gloves to Ben Foakes due to injury in Sri Lanka - though he scored a bristling century when asked to bat as a specialist at No. 3 - and then saw the role handed to Buttler following a 2-2 draw in the 2019 Ashes.

Bairstow's hundreds in crunch ODI World Cup group games against New Zealand and India were pivotal on England's path to the trophy that year, and his opening partnership with Roy was among the most prolific in history. He enhanced his reputation further in the IPL, but in Tests he drifted to the periphery.

A comeback in 2021 produced fitful success before an extraordinary late efflorescence the following year: liberated like never before by England's policy of all-out attack under Stokes and new coach Brendon McCullum, he teed off with four hundreds and a seventy in five innings, against New Zealand and India. The pick of them was perhaps his audacious 136 at Trent Bridge after England fell to 56 for 3 chasing 299 against New Zealand, a target they nevertheless careened to in 50 overs of blitzkrieg ball-thumping from Bairstow and Stokes. Bairstow finished with 1061 Test runs in 2022, the fourth most by anyone that year, at a strike rate of 76.

A trough followed, followed by yet another return to life with a boisterous, unbeaten 99 in England's 592 in the Old Trafford Ashes Test of 2023. Bairstow kicked that series off with a run-a-ball 78 at Edgbaston and bookended it with an identical score, in more circumspect fashion, at The Oval, where England levelled the series 2-2.

He made two fifties in a forgettable England ODI World Cup campaign that year, and the Test series that followed in India early in 2024 yielded slim pickings, leading to ejection from the side.

Jonny Bairstow IPL factfile

- Jonny Bairstow made his IPL debut for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in 2019, and quickly formed a destructive opening pair with David Warner.

- He and Warner had four century stands that year, the most by an opening pair in a single IPL edition.

- Bairstow ended the season with 445 runs from ten games, at an average of 55.62 and a strike rate of 157.24.

- SRH released him ahead of the 2022 mega auction, where he was picked up by Punjab Kings.

- Bairstow's first season with Kings was lukewarm, as he scored only 253 runs in 11 games.

- He missed IPL 2023 with a leg injury.