Former England captain Michael Vaughan has described Jonny Bairstow as not “a natural gloveman” and suggested he has been hampered by England’s lack of preparation for the 2023 Ashes.
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Bairstow has had a tough Test behind the stumps at Edgbaston. While he took an excellent one-handed catch to see off Marnus Labuschagne in the first innings, he also missed several chances, with a chance on the fourth evening flying between him and first slip.
He has only recently returned as England’s first-choice wicketkeeper, with Ben Foakes, generally considered a superior gloveman, dropped as Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes struggled with the dilemma of fitting both Bairstow and Harry Brook into the same XI. That decision has come in for criticism as the Edgbaston Test has progressed.
“It will be very loud about Jonny Bairstow’s position if England lose,” Vaughan said of the potential criticism, speaking on Test Match Special.
He pointed out how the value of a good wicketkeeper increases on batting-friendly pitches, such as the one seen at Birmingham, where wickets are at a premium. “When you’re on these kind of pitches, and if England are going to play on these pitches throughout the Ashes – they’re going to be flat and there is going to be a bit of spin – you would start to think that you would want your best keeper, because the chances are so crucial. If it’s swinging and seaming in normal English conditions, you always get another chance. If you’re a bowler and it’s moving about all over the place you might be disappointed if a catch goes down but you’ll be thinking, ‘it’s doing all sorts so we’re going to get another chance’.
“But on these kind of pitches you start thinking ‘when’s the next chance coming?’ So you really do have to make sure you are switched on. I don’t think he is a natural gloveman. He’s a very good one when he’s concentrated, and that’s why I’ve spoken all week about the concentrated minds to play the longer format can’t be with this England side, because they haven’t played.”
Vaughan expanded on England’s lack of preparations. Stokes and McCullum have inculcated a fun-loving, low-pressure environment, and chose to forgo any warm-up fixtures in the lead-up to the Ashes, instead opting for a tour of Britain’s golf courses, and Vaughan has wondered if they will come to regret not taking some part in the most recent round of County Championship fixtures, which began on the Sunday before the first Ashes Test.
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“Looking back, whatever they get out of this game, and they’ll be hoping for the win, but I hope they’re honest privately,” he said. “The golf trip, I love, go and have some fun, brilliant. But I just feel that two days of county cricket on the Sunday, Monday when they all could have played for their counties and had one innings in the field, one innings with the bat in the hand, I just think that would have been good preparation. Then you could have arrived here on the Tuesday, had a day off, and then practiced Wednesday, Thursday leading into the Friday.”
He felt the move would have been relevant not just for Bairstow, but for England’s seamers, and for the rest of the team to get into the right mindset to take on Australia.
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“You look at Jimmy Anderson, Jimmy Anderson had been injured for seven weeks, 41 [40] years of age, would Jimmy have been better off bowling 15 overs for Lancashire? I think he would. Ollie Robinson going back to play for his county, bowling 15. Would that be better? I believe that would have been better preparation, and it’s not just about the bodies, it’s about getting your mind switched on so it’s now cricket time. You’ve had the fun, you’ve had your golf trip, now it’s about cricket. I hope privately England don’t go, ‘We’ve won, we did everything right’. Because I would argue until I’m blue in the face that preparing for a big Ashes series without any cricket, when cricket was available to them, I still would say that England would have put in a sharper performance had they had a couple of days of cricket this week.”
England go into the final day at Edgbaston needing seven wickets, while Australia need 174 runs.
