Jonny Bairstow’s omission from the England Test squad this week brought to an end an extended run in the side. His emergence as an international player was marked when he was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 2016.
Jonny Bairstow is the holder of a unique Wisden hat-trick – in 2008 he was the first Schools Cricketer of the Year, in 2016 a Cricketer of the Year, and in 2018 his autobiography A Clear Blue Sky (with Duncan Hamilton) was Wisden’s Book of the Year.
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Jonny Bairstow was a good man for a crisis in 2015. All five of his Championship centuries for title-winners Yorkshire were carved from adversity after he strutted out, gimlet-eyed, at No. 5. So was his bristling unbeaten 83 off 60 balls to carry England over the line in the deciding one-day international against New Zealand in Durham, after he had arrived late the previous night as a replacement for the injured Jos Buttler.
The strife on that occasion had been particularly deep: 40-4 when he reached the crease soon became 45-5, at which point the requirement was 147 off 107 balls. England got home with an over to spare.
Bairstow was only eight when he found his father, David, hanging at their family home, a suicide brought on by financial worries and depression. His mother, Janet, herself seriously ill at the time, packed him and his sister Becky off to school next day. Life had to go on.
“It was not the best time,” he says. “It’s something that develops you into the people you are. Massive credit has to go to the family – mum, grandma, grandpa and uncle Andrew [Jonny’s elder half-brother, who kept wicket briefly for Derbyshire]. We’re only a small family, and would like to think a pretty tough one.”
His time with David was brief, but the inspiration lasting. “I remember dad teaching me how to hold a bat and sawing down one of his broken bats for me to use. I’ve still got it. I’ve got a lot of his bats and patched-up gloves.” David Bairstow would have been proud as Punch that Jonny emulated him in keeping wicket for England, the first father and son combination to do so.
