As the clock ticked past 4.36pm, the sun already burning through the mid-afternoon haze, there was some literal Bazball to be seen on lime-green Edgbaston outfield – raw, foraged Bazball – as Brendon McCullum took Jonny Bairstow for his wicketkeeping warmup before Australia’s fourth-innings chase.
And of course it wasn’t about the catches, walloped into the gloves with a deliciously grizzled bat. This was all about the hugs, the words in the ear, the million-dollar smile, the sense of voodoo, bro-vibes, man-feelings.
Bairstow laughed and leaned in close, feeling the good stuff. And from a distance it felt like something a little targeted and forensic, emergency mid-game repairs to a tender spot in this team. Because whatever happens on the final day of this relentlessly gripping Test it is probably also time to talk about Jonny.
Although, not in a way where anyone has to feel bad. Certainly his place in this team is utterly nailed down. Bairstow is the spirit animal of Bazball, and not just for the dam-burst of adrenal, biceps-flexing runs over the past year; the rage-hundreds; the way his bat slaps through the ball like a man gleefully demolishing a stud wall with a polo mallet.
Bairstow is 34 this year. It feels these days that his brilliance comes from a place of scars already acquired, of mid-series droppings and points proved. This is very much the Bazball emotional landscape, a sense of something that feels like a balm to the bruises of this sport. This is not the cricket of some cloudless crop of young guns, more a middle-aged catharsis, out there in their Spiderman suits, hitting sixes off Tower Bridge.
To great effect, too. England have played with wonderful verve and skill for four days of this game, have co-curated a sensational Test, and now look like they might just go and win it.
And of course the way they play is by its nature messy, ragged at the edges, a departure from the old, punishing ideal of the perfect performance, of only clean orderly lines.
If England play most of the time like a group of men in a raging hurry to get to a round of golf, then this is in part because they are. But it is also about not seeing those joins, accepting the flaws, seeing only additions and not subtractions.
There is a limit to these things, however. And that tender spot was there again 15 minutes after those warmups as Usman Khawaja played half a shot to a ball from Jimmy Anderson, edging low and hard between Bairstow and first slip.
It was a wicketkeeper’s catch, if only on the principle that, basically, you’re standing there with a massive pair of gloves and this is your job. It would have been a brilliant catch. But this is no excuse. The England Test team should expect to field a brilliant wicketkeeper.
Instead Bairstow didn’t move, watching it fizz past. And in that moment the total ticked up to five missed opportunities, with two missed stumpings and two edges grassed in the first innings.
It is tempting to make excuses for Bairstow here. He is just back from serious injury (and a bizarre leg-break incident while playing golf is in itself deeply Bazball). He has also kept in two first-class matches for Yorkshire plus the Ireland Test. This isn’t a Moeen-style mates-pick.
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There had been some unhappiness at his selection ahead of Ben Foakes. But then the world of marginal cricket picks is, like everything else, shot through with wildly enraged binary voices. For a while there seemed to be a genuine conviction that to pick Bairstow ahead of the deserving Foakes was to back cronyism, elitist schooling, Matt Hancock jogging in a Vodafone shirt and so on.
The reality is it made sense as a choice. On his record Bairstow at seven and taking the gloves is a serious plus in any team. Is it still? Even if they go on to win this match now England’s governance regime will face a test of the true nature of its fluidity. The fact is Bairstow has kept below his level, has looked heavier, slower on his feet. Bazball is fraternal, trust-based, non-punitive. But if it really is not just about throwing the rulebook out of the window, but not having a rulebook in the first place, not even having a window, then it would be progressive not regressive to bring Foakes into this team.
He is after all a grand talent with the gloves, and England are all about backing talent. The numbers also suggest Bairstow’s most effective role is still as a plain old high-class No 5, where he averages 44 with four hundreds. Who knows, taking the gloves might have the side benefit of making him cross – and angry Jonny is always the best Jonny, to the extent the England and Wales Cricket Board might want to look into hiring a shadow media team to constantly question his place in the team just to keep him on a rolling boil.
England may well go on to win this game. But there have been errors too and a little slackness in places. What happens at Lord’s will test the boundaries of how ruthless this regime can allow itself to be.
