The fiery English opener, Jonny Bairstow asserted that the reigning world champions will continue to play an aggressive and fearless brand of cricket. His statement came after the visiting team chased down 337 in just 43.3 overs to level the series in Pune ahead of the decider on Sunday. The opening batsman followed up 94 from 66 balls in the first match with 124 from 112 as England smashed as many as 20 sixes to make the stiff chase a complete mismatch.
After the series-leveling win in the second ODI, Jonny Bairstow said, “To be honest, I think it’s just happening that way. There hasn’t been a conversation saying we must hit more sixes.”
Bairstow smashed seven sixes, while No. 3 Ben Stokes tonked the Indian bowlers 10 times before falling for 99. Opener Jason Roy (55) and debutant Liam Livingstone (27 not out) also added to India’s misery as they conceded 20 sixes in total — the joint-most by them in an ODI. They had conceded a similar 20 sixes against South Africa in 2015.
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Talking about sixes, Jonny Bairstow said, “If you look at where the game is going around the world, whether that be in T20, or 50-over cricket the team that hits the most boundaries generally wins the game. There’s 20 today — now, that’s an extraordinary number in one game… If we can keep hitting boundaries, keep putting bowlers under pressure, they know if they miss their lengths, then that potentially could go for six.”
The reigning world champions are however aware of their high-risk approach, as they suffered a loss by 66 runs in the series opener despite Bairstow and Roy getting the team off to a similarly spectacular start.
Talking about the same, Bairstow said, “Look, the execution won’t happen every single time and people will get out doing it. If you actually break the game down only from a couple of days ago, we were way ahead of the game. To win that, chase down 337 with six-seven overs left and six wickets in the shed is something that we were really pleased with.’
On the personal front, Bairstow, who hit his 11th ODI ton, has set his sights on scoring the most number of centuries for his country in the fifty-over format. All his ODI centuries have come after he started opening the innings in 2017 as he has only Joe Root (16), skipper Eoin Morgan (13), and Marcus Trescothick (12) ahead of him in the list.
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Talking about his century, Jonny Bairstow said, “Well, naturally you’d like to have the most ODI hundreds for England. I’m happy, that’s the biggest thing and certainly in batting. I’ve got 11, and I think I have opened only 56-57 times so yeah I’m happy with those figures, but they mean nothing if you don’t keep converting them in the future. So, look, I’m happy with how I’m playing cricket at the moment and I’m really enjoying it.”
