Jonny Bairstow (Photo Source: Twitter)
England star batter Joe Root stated that wicketkeeper-batter Jonny Bairstow is at his best when he has a point to prove. Bairstow will play his 100th Test match when England plays India in the fifth and final Test on March 7, at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamshala.
Bairstow will became the 17th Englishman to play 100 matches in the longest format of the game during the series finale. Root described how Sir Geoffrey Boycott inspired Bairstow to convert fifties into hundreds, and how it drove him on to show a point.
“He likes to wear his emotions on his sleeve which I think makes him what he is. It brings the best out of him. A good example of that was at the end of one of the seasons at Yorkshire when he had just broken into the first team,” Root was quoted as saying on the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast.
“Me and Gary Ballance were coming through in the second team and we were all called into a meeting with the president at the time which was Sir Geoffrey Boycott. He sat us all down and said to me and Gary, ‘you are playing very well in the second team, keep working hard, keep doing certain things right and it won’t be long until you get in the first team’.
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“He then said, ‘Jonny, you have had an exceptional year in the second team and come into the first team and got four or five brilliant fifties – but I have got 151 first-class hundreds so if you want to borrow one you can because you have not looked like converting one of those!’ I think one of Jonny’s very next games he scored a double hundred. That is one of the examples of him going out and showing everyone how good he is, making a point when needed,” the 33-year-old added.
Root, who has known Bairstow since he was a young player in Yorkshire, believes nobody could write a better script for Bairstow. The wicketkeeper-batter has so far amassed 5974 runs at an average of 36.42 in 99 Tests, including 12 tons and 26 fifties.
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“He is also one of those genuinely kind people that wants to do everything for you. It might not always come across like that on the screen but he has a really good heart and is someone that will always have your back and look after you. You know how much it means to him to play for England and it will be an emotional week for him. You will see when we huddle and there is that presentation every bit of emotion he will be feeling. It will be nice to be there to share that with him. You couldn’t write a better script for Jonny Bairstow,” he said further.