Jonny Bairstow: Yorkshire CCC captain backed to dish out pain to opposition teams

He described the 36-year-old as one of England’s “best-ever” cricketers and backed him to “hit his straps” after a testing start for the captain and his team.

Bairstow leads them into battle against Surrey in the County Championship at Headingley on Friday seeking to pull clear from the lower reaches of Division One and he is on the brink of a proud milestone personally - 15,000 runs in first-class cricket, a figure of which he is 88 short.

“Yeah, look, Jonny is one of England’s best-ever,” said Hamilton.

“There's absolutely no getting away from that.

“He's not just played 100 Tests; he's played a hell of a lot of one-day internationals; he’s played in all formats of the game.

“Jonny is probably one of the ten best cricketers that England have produced in the last couple of decades. His talent goes without saying and speaks for itself.

"Everyone knows that we’ve had a tough start to the season, and you need somebody like him to help pull the lads through this kind of tough period.

“I’ve no doubt that he’ll do that and lead from the front and hit his straps too, and that somebody is going to feel the pain of Jonny sort of having a good three or four months because, once he gets going, we all know what he can do.

"I mean, he can change games in 20 minutes or half an hour with the bat.”

Bairstow is poised to follow his Yorkshire team-mates Joe Root and Adam Lyth to the 15,000-mark, their careers having dovetailed since they burst on the scene in the late Noughties.

Root is now just 718 short of 20,000 first-class runs and available for a match that Yorkshire will be desperate to win before the Championship breaks for the T20 Blast.

Bairstow, no doubt, will be keener than most and continues to impress Hamilton with his desire to do well.

With his international career now apparently over and, some would say, prematurely so, he has knuckled down with his usual determination.

“I think Jonny’s sort of acknowledged the situation regarding England,” said Hamilton.

“Last year it was a little bit ‘has it gone, has it not, I don’t know’, but he’s settled about where he is now in the game.

“He has his winter franchise cricket. He loves being around Yorkshire.

"He loves being captain. He’s as passionate as it gets, and that passion oozes out of him.

“You know, he's not a lad who strolls in here after playing 10 years of international cricket and has expectations or is above other players.

"He tries to lead from the front and that’s what he does.

"He plays with his heart on his sleeve and he lets you know what needs to be heard.

"He lets you know if we're not playing well, or whatever it may be, and the young lads, the whole team in fact, can see the passion and desire is there from the leader.”

Bairstow is also captain this season of the T20 side, who start their campaign against Notts Outlaws at Trent Bridge next Friday.

Hamilton believes that combining the leadership in that manner is a positive move.

“Jonny’s captain now and captain of the club,” he said, with Dawid Malan having led Yorkshire in T20 in 2025.

“Jonny’s got full control of the white-ball and red-ball, which I think is good from a continuity point of view and means that he can keep his messaging going.”