Jonny Bairstow’s resurgence to the top tier of test cricket is phenomenal. After having a mediocre year in 2021, Bairstow has been one of the best test cricketers of this year.
In this article, we will be taking a look at his improvement using cricket analytics.
Test Career Statistics
Jonny Bairstow is one of the best batsmen in the format of test cricket England has produced. His career as a test cricketer peaked in the year of 2016, in which he scored nearly 1500 runs in 29 innings. He also recorded his highest score of 167 runs in this format in the same year against Sri Lanka in the first innings.
After 2016, Bairstow’s test career regressed and he wasn’t even able to cross the 500 run mark until 2022.
But come the year 2022, he has the best strike rate and best run rate of his entire test career in the current year. He’s very close to crossing the 1000 run mark in just 16 matches.
Jonny Bairstow Player Matrix – Batting Strike Rate vs Batting Average
In the year 2021, Bairstow’s Batting Average and Batting Strike Rate belonged to the average group of batsmen. In 2022, however, he made his jump back to the upper echelon.
Bairstow was consistently able to maintain a high strike rate and batting average without sacrificing his total number of runs. He is the player with most runs in test cricket this year.
Pace vs Spin
In 2021, Bairstow scored 214 runs from 421 balls against Pace bowlers and 177 runs from 386 balls against Spin bowlers. He had a better run rate against pace bowlers compared to spin bowlers.
In 2022, Bairstow scored 817 runs from 1086 balls (approximately 4 times the runs from 2.5 times the balls faced compared to 2021) against Pace and 177 runs from 218 balls (same amount of runs from approximately half the number of balls) against Spin.
Even though his run rate improved against both pace and spin bowlers in the current year, there was a significant improvement in his performance against spin bowlers.
Chasing vs Defending
Bairstow performs much better when chasing a target as compared to defending the lead. His performance metrics like batting average, strike rate and run rate are better when chasing than when defending in both the years. However his performance metrics have improved significantly when chasing in 2022 as compared to 2021.
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Conclusion
From the above visual we can observe that Bairstow’s performance in test cricket this year overshadows his performance in 2021. He scored almost 3 times the runs, 6 centuries and 88 more boundaries as compared to his previous season and it is very likely that he is going to play more test matches this year.
If Bairstow is able to maintain his form until the end of the year, he might have his best year when it comes to Test cricket.
