Labour of glove for Bairstow may test his handiwork

IT is so long since Matt Prior missed a Test match that there was always going to be an element of the unknown.

131116 Jonny Bairstow

IT is so long since Matt Prior missed a Test match that there was always going to be an element of the unknown about whichever wicketkeeper was called on to replace him.

If Prior's calf injury fails to heal in time for the start of the Ashes series on Thursday, forcing him to sit out a five-day game for the first time since March 2009, Jonny Bairstow will step in to keep wicket at Test level for the first time.

Doubts have been raised in the past few days about Bairstow's suitability to keep wicket under such pressure, but Martyn Moxon, his director of cricket at Yorkshire, believes that any judgments of the player's glovework should take into account the limited amount of time he has spent behind the stumps over the past year.

Having been picked as a specialist batsman by England in all formats, Bairstow did not keep wicket in a match between November and April last winter. During the summer, he then spent long periods without wearing the gloves in a match, first as an unused member of the Champions Trophy squad, then playing as a batsman in the first four Ashes Tests.

"Jonny is a hugely talented cricketer and when he's kept wicket regularly, he's done a very good job," Moxon said yesterday. "But it's like anything else, you're going to do the job better if you're doing it regularly. If he's going to be the No?2 in the country, he needs to be keeping wicket regularly. He hasn't done that in the last year because England have been using him as a batsman, so I think people should remember that when they're looking at his keeping."

Since making his international debut two years ago, Bairstow, 24, has played 12 Tests, seven one-day internationals and 18 Twenty20 matches for England. In only one of those matches - against Sri Lanka in the ICC World Twenty20 last year - has he worn the gloves.

So have England gambled by taking such an inexperienced back-up for Prior to Australia, a batsman who keeps rather than a wicketkeeper who bats? Michael Vaughan, the former England captain, has said he thinks that Bairstow is not among the best five wicketkeepers in the country. Moxon says such criticism is unfair.

"He's capable of being an outstanding international cricketer, both with bat and gloves," Moxon said. "But he needs to be allowed to develop his game. England have got to come up with a development plan for his keeping if they want him to be Matt Prior's No 2."

Prior has been a constant in England's Test team for the past 57 Tests. The previous time England played a Test without him, Gordon Brown was prime minister and the national football team had recently suffered their first defeat after an encouraging start to the managerial tenure of Fabio Capello. And the wicketkeeper in Prior's absence back in 2009? That would be Tim Ambrose, against West Indies in Barbados, playing the last of his 11 Tests.

Bairstow has always considered himself a wicketkeeper-batsman. His father, David, kept wicket for Yorkshire and England, and his older brother, Andrew, was also a wicketkeeper who played a handful of games for Derbyshire in 1995.

The difference for Bairstow Jr is that he has been good enough with the bat to win selection, with or without the gloves. He played as a batsman for much of his first two seasons with Yorkshire before taking over from Gerard Brophy as full-time wicketkeeper in 2011.

At the end of that season, he made his England debut and, in a sense, he has been caught between two stools since, working hard to improve his glovework, both at Yorkshire and with Bruce French, the England wicketkeeping coach, but also spending long periods without keeping in a match. For England's one-day team, Craig Kieswetter and Jos Buttler have kept wicket rather than Bairstow.

It is worth remembering that when Prior made his Test debut in 2007, he was also a batsman who kept wicket. He made a century on his debut at Lord's, but his glovework was so poor that he spent a year out of the Test side in 2008.

In an interview with The Times this year, Prior said: "I don't like watching highlights from 2007. I can't quite believe I made my debut as a keeper."

He spent his time out of the side wisely, however, working with French, modifying his technique, and bulking up. The results were so impressive that he has become the best wicketkeeper-batsman in the world.

Now England have been forced to confront the prospect of being without him in the most unforgiving of arenas at the Gabba. If Bairstow keeps wicket this week, it will be a test of his guts as much as his gloves.

The Times