Yorkshire CCC hoping Jonny Bairstow can help end their long winless run
They will care primarily whether Bairstow – set to play his first County Championship game since 2018, following his recovery from a broken leg and a dislocated ankle suffered while playing golf last September – can help Yorkshire to their first win in the competition for over a year.
How they need one having been installed as the runaway favourites to win the Second Division – always a dangerous tag to be handed by the bookmakers – only to start their season with a defeat, an abandonment and a draw to sit second-bottom of the fledgling table.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdYorkshire’s run of 15 matches without a Championship victory is the joint third-worst sequence in their history, matching the run of 1971. For the record, the second-worst is 16 in 1989-90, and the worst 20 in 2008-09.
Bairstow’s last Championship outing was memorable; he was part of arguably the greatest hat-trick in the game’s history when Lancashire’s Jordan Clark dismissed Joe Root, Kane Williamson and then Bairstow amid disbelieving scenes at Old Trafford.
Bairstow recovered to top-score with 82 in the second innings, a key contribution that helped Yorkshire win by 118 runs.
Since then, Bairstow, 33, has made two first-class appearances for Yorkshire – both in 2020 in the Bob Willis Trophy, the tournament which replaced the Championship in that Covid-hit year.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdHe returned to competitive action last week for the Yorkshire second team, scoring 97 and 57 against Nottinghamshire at Headingley, and taking a couple of catches behind the stumps.
While Bairstow aims to prove his form and fitness ahead of the Ashes, Marnus Labuschagne will be aiming to build on a solid start to the season for Glamorgan.
The 28-year-old right-hander, who averages 57 in Test cricket, struck 64 in last week’s draw against Leicestershire at Grace Road, having captured career-best figures of 4-81 bowling off-spin (he usually bowls leg-spin) on his first appearance of the campaign against Durham at Cardiff.
Glamorgan have another useful Australian in their ranks in the form of Michael Neser, the 33-year-old pace bowling all-rounder, who must have half-an-eye on the Ashes himself.
Advertisement
Hide Ad