Azeem Rafiq’s reflections on Jonny Bairstow’s Test landmark

LONDON: Against the dramatic background of the Himalayas, Jonny Bairstow is playing in his 100th Test match for England at Dharamsala. This makes him the 17th Englishman to achieve that feat, the most recent of whom was Ben Stokes in February 2024, also against India. In the team are Joe Root, now with 140 Tests and James Anderson, who is playing in his 187th, second only to Sachin Tendulkar, with 200. Prior to this match, 72 players have reached the landmark, 10 of them appearing in more than 150 Tests. In a remarkable coincidence, Ravichandran Ashwin of India is also making his 100th Test appearance in the match, and on Feb. 8 two New Zealand players, Kane Williamson and Tim Southee, will reach the landmark against Australia.

Bairstow made his debut for England in 2012 at Lords against the West Indies, having made his One Day International debut Sept. 16, 2011, against India at Cardiff. His breakthrough into first class cricket came in June 2009, when he made his debut for Yorkshire against Somerset at Leeds. He top-scored in the second innings with an unbeaten 82. In Somerset’s second innings, Yorkshire’s wicketkeeper was injured and Bairstow took over the role, claiming four catches.

Someone who witnessed that debut was Azeem Rafiq, who was 12th man for the team, having made his own debut for the county in the previous month. I spoke with Rafiq about his experience of playing with and sharing time with Bairstow. He was full of admiration and lavish with praise for Bairstow and his achievements. These have been made against a backdrop of challenges. It is well documented that he lost his father, David, at the age of eight in tragic circumstances. Bairstow senior had been a wicketkeeper/batter for Yorkshire for 20 years, playing four times for England.

Azeem was quite clear that Bairstow is a seriously talented and gifted athlete, with very high levels of skill across a number of sports, including football and rugby. He is also clear in his view that Bairstow has been underrated. Rafiq thinks “it is unfair that Bairstow has been questioned so much and has had to prove himself so often.” From the outside, Bairstow portrays a pugnacious personality. Rafiq sees this as a defence mechanism, saying that it must “be draining to continually have to prove himself and fight against the tide.”

At times, Bairstow gives the impression of being prickly. Rafiq says that, in reality, Bairstow is very human. “Yes, he does wear his heart on his sleeve, but there is no lack of authenticity with Jonny, he brings his whole self to work. Playing for England means the world to him, he loves the touring aspects of the job.”

Mark Ramprakash, a former coach to the England team, has written that he found working with Bairstow a challenge, not because he did anything wrong but that he prepared in a spontaneous and instinctive way. Rafiq’s view is that Bairstow “has an inner steel, a confidence in his own ability, is very driven and works hard in silence, all of which shapes his approach to training and preparation.”

Rafiq was also keen to point out that Bairstow has a level of performance across all three formats of the game which should be the envy of many. Only three cricketers have played one hundred times for their country in each of the formats — Tests, ODIs and T20Is. They are Ross Taylor of New Zealand, Virat Kohli of India and David Warner of Australia. Another one, Tim Southee of New Zealand, will be added on Feb. 8. Jonny Bairstow has played in 100 Tests, 170 ODIs and 70 T20Is.

During his 99 Test matches, Bairstow has scored twelve centuries. The first, an unbeaten 150, was scored at Newlands, Cape Town, in 2016. The last one, an unbeaten 142, came in the defeat of India at Edgbaston in July 2022.

It was scored in the second innings and followed another century by Bairstow in the first innings, 106 out a total of 284. He is one of 72 players to have scored a century in both innings of a Test match. In the first eight months of 2022, he scored 1,061 Test runs, including six centuries, a remarkable achievement. Then in September, in peak form, he suffered a freak, but career-threatening, ankle and leg injury which ruled him out of the 2022 T20 World Cup and all cricket until April 2023.

In some of the many articles written about Bairstow reaching the milestone in Tests, a question is raised as to whether it could be the last one for him. Here again is the constant picking away at his right to be in the team to which Rafiq has referred. Not only is this raised in relation to Bairstow’s batting, but also to his wicket keeping.

He is a specialist wicketkeeper/batter but has kept wicket in only just over half of his Test matches. When he first came into the Test team, he did not keep wicket. The first opportunity came in December 2013, but it was another two years before he was made first choice keeper, a position that he has not always been able to retain. In the current tour of India, he is not keeping wicket.

Bairstow has produced some incredible highs in his career. In the triumphant 2019 ODI World Cup campaign England was indebted to his back-to-back centuries in the group stage against India and New Zealand that propelled the team into the semi-finals. Against this, critics allege a lack of consistency, a Test average of 36.4 and some indifferent wicketkeeping at times.

This makes it even more remarkable that Bairstow has reached the 100 Test landmark. Rafiq refers to Bairstow’s “resilience in abundance,” saying that the landmark is “an incredible achievement, a testimony to Jonny and his family on a journey that has not been easy, but which he hopes still has some way to run.”