I wondered if I’d walk again, let alone play cricket: Bairstow opens up on his broken leg agony

Jonny Bairstow stopped smiling for a moment as he considered the severity of the injury that shattered him just as he rode the crest of a particularly large wave.

“I really wondered if I would be able to walk, jog, run and play cricket again,” said Bairstow, reflecting on the badly broken left leg and dislocated ankle he suffered bizarrely when he slipped on his local golf course after the summer of his life.

“Yes, there were dark times. There are so many things going through your head until you can play again. It’s like falling off your bike and hurting yourself. You think about that until you come back to it because of the bad memories. You wonder, will it feel the same?’

Bairstow held court at Old Trafford at the launch of the ECB’s partnership with Radox after getting back on his metaphorical bike by both batting and, significantly, keeping the wicket for Yorkshire in a second team match and two Championship matches.

He is pleased to report that playing cricket really felt the same again and he is back in England at the start of an Ashes summer when he hopes to pick up where he left off last year before being so brutally interrupted by a vicious twist of fate.

Bairstow was the first face of ‘Bazball’ last summer, with four spectacular centuries

Bairstow ‘feels’ for Ben Foakes after wicketkeeper was dropped to make way for him

“It feels like a long time since the injury,” Bairstow continued. “It was actually quite nerve-wracking when I came back with the second team.

It was like being 16 again and making my debut. But it’s been good. There is no leg reaction and it is nice to be back. That’s how I looked at it. Have fun. And I missed it.’

Rarely could there have been a stronger example of Kipling’s twin tricksters. The triumph of being the first face of ‘Bazball’, with four spectacular centuries in victories last summer, was followed by that golf course disaster and a grim winter.

“Last summer went so well,” Bairstow said. “Then the injury happened the day after I was told I would open in the T20 World Cup. I went through a lot of emotions watching the guys win, but of course there was a lot of pride.

‘Even if you are injured, you belong to the group. The guys were brilliant, they kept in touch and kept me informed. Occasional Face time with the guys talking utter nonsense. Now I’m excited again. It will be a new challenge and I can’t wait.’

That challenge, with Bairstow back in the dual role of keeper-batsman that he enjoyed before performing as well as a specialist batsman, will somewhat controversially come at the expense of Ben Foakes who has made way rather than most people’s choice in Zak Crawley.

“I haven’t had a chance to talk to Ben yet, but I’m sure I will,” Bairstow said. “I’ve been in that situation, so I can absolutely sympathize with him. It’s the nature of sports. I’m not the one making those decisions. Ben has played a huge role over the past 12 months and there is no doubt he will play for England again at some point.”

Now it’s Bairstow behind the stumps against Ireland and then Australia, where he’s confident his reconstructed left leg will withstand the strain. “I don’t really think it’s any different than fieldwork,” he insisted. “You sprint, dive and change direction in the field. You crouch as a goalkeeper and move sideways, but you don’t run 25 km around the border. It’s a different kind of fitness.’

But there will be a legacy for what was a very serious injury. “People have said to me ‘you’re limping,'” Bairstow said. “But there will be little flaws, little aches and pains. If there is trauma, there will be an adjustment to the way your body moves.

‘But that’s okay. There is a lot of confidence about this summer.

The last time I played against South Africa last summer I was part of a special group doing special things.

That remains the same. Can we continue as we have been against the Aussies? There will certainly be a belief that we can. I think we’ll find out in the next two months!’

Jimmy is feeling good, so are we!

There was more positivity at Old Trafford and it came from Jimmy Anderson who confirmed the injury he suffered last week was minor.

“I feel good,” Anderson said. “It was just a minor groin injury and it’s a 10-day recovery period. I will be fit to play against Ireland but whether I play or not remains to be seen as I am desperate to play in the Ashes.’

All of English cricket will echo the sentiment…

Let’s hope supporting Zak works out

… but think hard about Crawley in all this. Yes, by any established cricketing logic, he’s very lucky to still have a place in England as the Ashes approach.

But it’s hardly his fault he’s been so emphatically supported and it’s hard for him to bear the brunt of that negative reaction to England’s latest squad.

Zak Crawley will try to repay the trust of England management during the Ashes

The key now is for Crawley to make the most of his luck and prove Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum right in their judgment of him.

“My shortcomings in international cricket are that I put too much pressure on myself,” Crawley told the BBC. ‘That’s the only reason. Every time I’ve gone out with the right attitude, I’ve done well.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about my game, especially in the last few months. I look back at times when I played well and then I took the expectations away from myself and just played. If I do that, the scores will come naturally.’

Crawley is a good player and a good man. It would be great for himself and the England team if he can really justify that extensive support this summer with those big scores.