Root and Bairstow in battle for Ashes selection

Answer: You drop him.

Or at least that is what England did after Jonny Bairstow put South Africa to the sword at Lord’s last summer.

Bairstow, who scored more runs in that game than any other player, a game the tourists won by 51 runs to take the series 2-0 and lift England’s world No 1 crown, was not selected for the next Test in India.

Kevin Pietersen, the man Bairstow replaced at Lord’s when the former was dropped following his infamous “it’s tough being me” speech after the Headingley Test, was successfully “reintegrated”, while England went for Nick Compton up front – resisting calls to promote Jonathan Trott, or blood Yorkshire’s Joe Root – and Samit Patel at No 7.

Although Bairstow returned for the second Test in India after Ian Bell went home on maternity leave, he managed only nine runs in his solitary innings – an innings replays showed was unfairly curtailed when he was caught via a fielder’s helmet grille.

This incident seemed to sum up the start to Bairstow’s Test career, with things never really falling for him when he played his first three Tests against the West Indies last summer.

Not only did he have only four innings, which yielded 16, 0 not out, 4 and 18, but he did not bat until at least the third day in each game – hardly ideal for a young man’s nerves – and was cited as having problems with the short ball.

Although Bairstow answered those by playing South Africa’s Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel superbly at Lord’s, he was passed up again for the third and fourth Tests in India, England handing a debut at No 6 in the latter fixture to Root, who responded with 73 and 20 not out.

Bairstow, who has since turned 23, is a confident young man but the events of the past few months are bound to have hurt him.

Although he will be pleased for Root, he can consider himself unfortunate at the way his own star has dipped through no fault of his own.

Now, after being recalled for 
the final Test in Auckland that began last night, Bairstow has another opportunity to prove his worth.

At stake could be his participation in this summer’s Ashes, with Root having nudged ahead of him now that Compton has cemented – at least in the short term – the opener’s role vacated by Andrew Strauss.

Once more the common denominator in Bairstow’s selection is Pietersen, who is out for up to eight weeks with a knee injury.

Bairstow, who possesses echoes of Pietersen in his ability to annihilate an attack, has returned with a Test series once more at stake.

Following sterile draws in the first two games in Dunedin and Wellington, it has boiled down to a winner-takes-all showdown at Eden Park.

Given that Bairstow more than did his bit in that decisive showdown against South Africa at Lord’s, he clearly has the capacity for the challenge.

Yet, however Bairstow performs in this last Test (and it would be an achievement for him to get runs given that he has played only one first-class game in seven months in yet another example of crazy scheduling), he has already done enough, in my view, to play in the Ashes.

For it was not simply the aggregate of Bairstow’s runs in that game against South Africa that impressed, it was the manner of them and the context of their accretion.

On the biggest stage, against the best attack and with his team’s No 1 ranking at stake, and with people saying he could not play the short delivery, Bairstow walked into a situation that had the air for him of a last-chance saloon.

When he walked out of that saloon, he had proved two things: first, that he is a player of rare ability and, second, that he can deliver when it matters most, when the pressure is on both himself and his side.

It was the performance of a man who, rather like Pietersen, savours the big challenge, and – despite Australia’s woes – they do not come much bigger than the Ashes.

For me, Bairstow is a more viable option going forward in the middle-order than Root, who, in turn, is a more viable option going forward than Compton as opener, and certainly more suited to opening than No 6.

Full credit to Compton; he is a splendid cricketer who has done superbly of late, but, without wishing to take anything away from him, he has been scoring runs on flat pitches against a powder-puff attack.

Compton is not going to be dropped any time soon, though, leaving Root and Bairstow to battle it out.