Hodd gets chance to impress in Bairstow’s absence

Pietersen threatened to quit Test cricket altogether and was dropped for the final match of the series against South Africa, when it emerged that his unhappiness with Team England extended to having sent “provocative texts” about former captain Andrew Strauss to the South African players.

Yorkshire’s Jonny Bairstow was drafted in for the denouement at Lord’s and filled not only 
Pietersen’s shoes but his own boots too, top-scoring with 95 and 54 before falling victim to some dubious selection during the winter.

And back at the scene of 
Pietersen’s outburst, Yorkshire, having released South African wicketkeeper Gerard Brophy, recruited arguably the biggest – and certainly the most unlikely – beneficiary of the whole KP saga: Andrew Hodd.

At 28, Hodd’s career had hit the buffers. The former England Under-19 wicketkeeper had found first-team opportunities hard to come by at Sussex due, initially, to the presence of Matt Prior and, latterly, to that of Ben Brown.

With Bairstow away with England and KP in the doghouse, Hodd – who had not played a Championship match for 13 months – was handed the last four Championship games to make an impression.

He grabbed that chance with both gloves – clutching 18 catches and showing sufficient snippets with the bat to convince Yorkshire to hand him a two-year contract.

Now the cheerful Hodd, who hails from Chichester, finds himself back in the Yorkshire team owing this time to 
Pietersen’s absence from the England side with a knee injury that has once more created an opportunity for Bairstow in the Test series against New Zealand that starts tomorrow.

Hodd rose to the challenge well last week, when Bairstow was away with the England Lions, sharing a stand of 88 against Somerset with Adil Rashid and keeping wicket with customary aplomb.

With uncertainty surrounding Bairstow’s availability for the rest of the summer as he seeks to cement his England place, Hodd could be set for an extended run in the Yorkshire XI – continuing with today’s visit to county champions Warwickshire.

Deputising for Bairstow is a daunting task – if Bairstow had big shoes to fill at Lord’s last August, then Hodd has equally formidable footwear to step into at Yorkshire – but one that Hodd is clearly relishing.

“The important thing is just to be myself,” he said.

“Jonny is a fantastic player and that’s why he’s representing his country, but I’m not trying to be anyone else or trying to be as good as anyone else; I’m just trying to do a job for the boys.

“As an understudy, all I can do is try to keep well, score some runs and make it hard for the club to drop me.

“I’m used to the understudy role from my Sussex days with Matt Prior, and I’m just happy to be playing in all honesty.”

Back in the day, when the shadow of Prior was omnipresent at Hove, Hodd admits he put too much pressure on himself.

In particular, in an era when it is no longer acceptable for a wicketkeeper to contribute only catches and stumpings, he beat himself up over some modest performances with the bat.

“I put too much pressure on my batting and I always seemed to fall short,” said Hodd, who averages 28 in first-class cricket with a top score of 123 against Yorkshire at Hove in 2007.

“Nowadays, I’m more cricket-smart and I’m not putting myself under that added pressure.

“I’m there to take what chances I get with the gloves and, because I’m coming in at No 7 and we’ve got the luxury that we bat all the way down, if I can chip in with a few runs along the way then that’s a bonus.

“In the past, after that initial honeymoon period that all young cricketers seem to go through, people started to work me out a little bit with the bat and I was putting myself under the wrong sort of pressure.”

Hodd last week returned to a Yorkshire side buoyed by successive victories over Durham and Derbyshire that served as a good riposte to defeat in the opening Championship match against Sussex.

He was almost part of a third straight win as Yorkshire claimed six cheap Somerset second-innings wickets before being forced to settle for a draw.

“Having been in the second XI, I wasn’t around for the start of this season, but it seems as though the first innings up at Durham (when Yorkshire were dismissed for 177) was a bit of a wake-up call and, from then on, the boys have dug their heels in and shown a bit of Yorkshire grit,” he added. “Teams just haven’t been able to live with the lads. Now we go down to Edgbaston and I think we’ll go toe-to-toe with Warwickshire.

“They’ve got a great seam attack and so have we with our existing bowlers and the signings we’ve made during the winter, so I think it’ll be an interesting ‘seam-off’.”

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