‘Phenomenal, incredible’: Bairstow’s 136 lauded by England captain Stokes

Jonny Bairstow brought New Zealand to their knees and a capacity crowd to their feet with an innings of beautiful brutality to power England to a five‑wicket victory in the second Test at Trent Bridge, producing a 92‑ball 136 that Ben Stokes described as “one of the best things I’ve ever seen” and made a daunting run chase appear trivial.

Bairstow emerged from the dressing room with England 56 for three in their pursuit of a victory target of 299, and with a shade more than 57 overs remaining. When he departed they needed 27 with very nearly 27 overs in hand and the rest was a formality, as they went on to take an unassailable 2-0 series lead.

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“I’m incredibly proud of the way I went about that innings,” he said. “Because it wasn’t just a case of ‘let’s go gung-ho’. It was pick your times, pick your moments, then try to change the game.”

Tea was taken with England 139 for four and the game still in the balance, but when play resumed Bairstow scored 45 off the next 20 deliveries he faced, responding to a barrage of short balls by repeatedly dumping them into the crowd. “Ben said: ‘Don’t even think about hitting it down, just plant it in the stands,’” Bairstow said. “I was just trying to do what the captain said.”

In all England scored 59 runs from the first four overs of a dizzying final session dominated by Bairstow and Stokes, who was troubled at times by a longstanding knee injury – “nothing to worry about,” he said later – and hit a comparatively pedestrian 70-ball 75.

“There’s been some tough times over the last couple of years, we’ve all been there and we know the circumstances that they’ve been under,” Bairstow said. “To entertain a full house at Trent Bridge on day five, to play this cricket, is a credit to the guys in the dressing room. There was never a backward step taken. It’s an exciting start to an exciting journey that we’re all on together.”

The New Zealand pace bowler Kyle Jamieson will return home after an MRI scan revealed a stress-reaction to his lower left back.

The 27-year-old sustained the injury while bowling on day three of the second Test. Pace bowler Blair Tickner, who was with the Test side in England for the early tour games, has been called into the squad as Jamieson’s replacement and will arrive in the UK prior to the third Test at Headingley.

Tickner’s domestic teammate Dane Cleaver has received his maiden Test call-up as a replacement for wicketkeeper Cam Fletcher who has also been ruled out of the tour with a grade-two right-hamstring strain .Fletcher sustained the injury while fielding on day four of the second Test and will require six to eight weeks to recover.

Stokes has played a key part in many of England’s most memorable moments of recent years, most notably the 2019 World Cup final and the Ashes Test win in Leeds the following month, but he insisted this victory set a new high-water mark in his career.

“I’m struggling to find words for what we witnessed out there. It was just phenomenal,” he said. “This blows away Headingley, it blows away Lord’s and the World Cup final. Just emotionally and the enjoyment of every minute I had on that field, it was incredible. I can’t quite wrap my head around how we’ve chased 299 with 22 overs left on day five of the Test match when we had to bowl 15 overs this morning. That’s never going to happen again. But if it does, it is probably us who are going to do it.”

At Lord’s last year New Zealand set England a target of 273 to win, at 3.5 runs an over, which they made no attempt to achieve. The contrast with this performance, under the new and remorselessly positive management of Stokes and Brendon McCullum, could not be more stark.

“The message at tea was just run into the fear of where the game was, rather than stand still or back away from it,” Stokes said. “It was pretty much, ‘We’re either winning this game or losing it.’ But we’re never going to be happy with where we are.

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“Now we’re going to Headingley and we’re going to be even more positive. With this group of players the sky’s the limit – but we can probably go further than that.”

As the dust started to settle it was not just Stokes who was struggling to comprehend what he had just witnessed. New Zealand considered themselves favourites as they arrived at Trent Bridge in the morning, and even at tea believed they had a good chance of snatching victory.

“We tried a few different things after tea but unfortunately whatever we tried they were able to negate,” said Tom Latham, who stood in as captain in the absence of the self‑isolating Kane Williamson. “We were confident we could get a couple of wickets and then we were into their bowlers, but sometimes you’ve got to take your hat off to the way someone’s played. Some other days he might hit one straight to one of the guys, but today was Jonny’s day.”