Jonny Bairstow

About Jonny Bairstow

Jonny Bairstow is an international cricketer from England, listed as a wicketkeeper batter. Career years: 2011 - 2024. Batting style: right-hand bat. Bowling style: right-arm medium. Date of birth: 1989-9-26. Career highlights — ODI: 3868 runs at avg 42.97, 11 hundreds; T20I: 1671 runs at avg 29.83. Explore complete career numbers, debut matches and match-by-match form below.

Jonny Bairstow biography

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.