Brilliant Bairstow, the all-round star
Wicketkeeper-batter Jonny Bairstow has achieved impressive and varied success through a storied career which continues to progress at pace.
A two-time Championship title and Ashes winner with Yorkshire and England, he was also part of our nation’s glorious World Cup triumph in 2019.
In 2024, he returned to county colours during the second half of the summer and helped secure promotion back to Division One of the Rothesay County Championship, scoring one hundred in five appearances and keeping impressively.
Electric Bairstow has played a huge part in the Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum era of Test cricket, particularly at its start when he scored six centuries at home and abroad, helping England to win nine of the pair’s first 10 matches in charge.
Unfortunately, the now 35-year-old lost his place across all formats in 2024, but it would be no surprise to see him win it back.
In the summer of 2022, he crashed a 77-ball century against New Zealand at Trent Bridge on the way to a final day, match-winning 136. It was England’s second fastest hundred ever in that format.
Bairstow, the Bradford-born son of the late, great David, is a sporting natural. He also excelled in hockey and rugby union – one of his big passions – for St Peter’s School in York and was on Leeds United’s junior programme.
The Yorkshire Championship-winning summers of 2014 and 2015 were particularly memorable from a domestic point of view. In the latter, he scored a sensational 1,108 Championship runs in only 15 innings at 92.33 with five hundreds and as many fifties.
Bairstow, whose England debut came in ODIs in 2011, has played in the IPL for Sunrisers Hyderabad and Punjab Kings.
In 2023, he was awarded the Freedom of Bradford and played his 100th One-Day International. At the start of 2024, in India, he also played his 100th Test Match.
Upon his return to Yorkshire colours for his handful of four-day appearances in later 2024, he hit a fine 160 in a high-scoring draw against Middlesex at Headingley.
On the eve of the 2025 season, Bairstow was appointed as Yorkshire’s captain for this season’s Rothesay County Championship.
UPDATED: March 2025.
