Jonny Bairstow is expected to keep wicket for Yorkshire in two County Championship games this May, as the England batter looks to force his way back into the Test side after being absent through injury since September
- Jonny Bairstow scored four Test hundreds and an unbeaten 71 last summer
- The 33-year-old has been absent since September after breaking his leg
- He is now set to play two Championship games as a wicketkeeper in May
Jonny Bairstow is set to keep wicket for Yorkshire in two County Championship matches in May in a clear indication of his route back into England’s Test team.
Bairstow, 33, was the country’s form player prior to suffering a freak leg break in a golfing accident, having reeled off four hundreds and an unbeaten 71 in five Test innings as a specialist batter last summer.
However, his absence from September onwards opened up the door to his county colleague Harry Brook, who started his own Test career more prolifically across his first nine innings than anyone in the history of the game, leaving England with a selection quandary ahead of the Ashes.
One option appeared to be to release Zak Crawley from his prolonged struggles as an international opener, but that appears to have been discounted and Bairstow has been lined up to don the gloves for Yorkshire against Glamorgan at Headingley on May 4 and then away at Durham the following week.
Johnny Bairstow has been absent through injury since breaking his leg in September
The 33-year-old is now expected to play two County Championship games for Yorkshire as a wicketkeeper in an attempt to force his way back into the England Test side
Bairstow is using that pair of Division Two fixtures to prove his fitness for the four-day Test versus Ireland at Lord’s on June 1, and returning to his preferred dual wicketkeeper-batsman role suggests he has been lined up replace Ben Foakes in the first-choice Ashes XI.
The Yorkshireman was the embodiment of Bazball in 2022, scoring six hundreds in all, with an average of 66.3 and a strike rate of 76.
Bairstow has been training with the Yorkshire first-team squad over recent days and Sportsmail understands the club would be willing to accommodate a request from the ECB for him to be selected as a wicketkeeper for the matches in question.
Foakes hit his second Test hundred last summer and averages a respectable 32.2 with the bat in Test cricket, but England retained Ollie Pope behind the stumps for the second Test in Pakistan after his Surrey colleague missed the first through illness last December.
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