Jonny Bairstow needs to train with a tennis ball: Adam Gilchrist

Adam Gilchrist and Jonny Bairstow. (Photo Source: Twitter)

The former legendary Australia stumper-batter Adam Gilchrist opines that the English camp should not press the panic button as yet for Jonny Bairstow’s poor glovework in the first Ashes 2023 Test. He further iterated that going back to training and fixing the basics is the only way forward. However, Gilchrist came up with an interesting suggestion for the England keeper.

The 51-year-old advised Bairstow to practice with a tennis ball as it helps in dealing with the bounce factor. Notably, the England stumper had missed quite a few chances including the big wicket of the Australian all-rounder Cameron Green during the Edgbaston Test. Gilly believes that tennis balls help in getting the soft movements right especially while keeping close to the stumps.

“They don’t need to panic, and I suspect they won’t. Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes are not panic merchants and have a lot of belief in the group they’ve got. But Jonny has come off an injury and will be better for the run. In the next week, he will practise his batting but I bet he does a lot of sharpening of his wicketkeeping. He’s a talented athlete and I reckon that’s a bit of an aberration: it’s not often that three or four chances go down behind the stumps,” Gilchrist said.

Whether they cost the Test match, they contribute to the position England were in. That stumping of Cam Green early in the first innings would have had Australia 140 for five, was reasonably regulation. Good sight of the ball, it spun a bit and bounced but he was just too stiff. You can do a lot of drills with a tennis ball, just inner gloves on, not your keeping gloves. Just be really soft,” Gilly was quoted as saying by The Telegraph’s Vaughany and Tuffers podcast.

I was the beneficiary of a period of time when wicketkeepers that batted well started to get the nod: Gilchrist

Meanwhile, looking at the moments in the game when Jonny Bairstow failed to deliver with the keeping gloves, several experts and fans alike triggered the debate about whether Ben Foakes should be the first-choice stumper for England. In the same vein, Adam Gilchrist also chimed in and shared his views on the matter. In a rather interesting take, Gilly reminded everyone about the moment when he was handed the wicketkeeper role solely on the basis that he batted better than other stumpers who went into contention for the role back in his era.

Furthermore, the 51-year-old said that he benefited from being in a similar situation himself so he cannot harp the trumpet around Bairstow’s selection conundrum.

“I don’t want to put the blowtorch on Jonny, it’sa risk v reward selection and I was the beneficiary of a period of time when wicketkeepers that batted well started to get the nod more than the straight old-fashioned wicketkeeper. I can’t complain about that system too much,” Gilchrist concluded.