By Andy Wilson
Jonny Bairstow was reminded of his childhood when he arrived at Bloemfontein’s Chevrolet Park for training this morning, but the England Lions wicketkeeper-batsman remains focused on the present.
Nico Pretorius, the groundsman for the Chevrolet Knights, was a pace bowler for Free State in his youth – some locals say he was quicker than the great Allan Donald, who remains idolised in these parts.
Pretorius also spent a few seasons playing league cricket around England, including a couple of summers in Yorkshire, and he was delighted to catch up with Bairstow, who he remembered as an enthusiastic and gifted youngster.
“It was a long time ago,” Bairstow said with a smile when interviewed for the Chevrolet Knights magazine show. “Hopefully we can put on a display here and show him how much we’ve grown up.”
“It looks a good pitch,” said Bairstow in the middle of a lengthy personal practice session. He kept wicket on the outfield and faced the spinners in an outdoor net, but had to go inside to face the seamers because the pitches remained damp as the result of a recent storm.
“Hopefully there will be a bit more in it for the bowlers than in Paarl and hopefully it will produce a result because that’s why we’ve come here, to push for a win.
“We’re looking forward to this week; we were pleased with the performances quite a lot of the guys put in last week and hopefully we can take that forward and produce a match-winning performance here in Bloem.”
Think the planes headroom was abit small for the big lad @boydrankin #crookneck haha http://t.co/yramkASDJO pic.twitter.com/Zfn361Spip
— Jonathan Bairstow (@jbairstow21) January 15, 2015
Bairstow followed an unbeaten 62 in the warm-up match in Soweto with 63 from 95 balls in Paarl , sharing a fifth-wicket stand of 103 with Lions captain Jonathan Trott , who also anchored century partnerships with James Vince and Adil Rashid .
“I was pretty pleased,” Bairstow said. “It was good to spend a bit of time in the middle, scoring the runs that I did. Obviously it was disappointing not to go on and make a big one but I was pleased how I was striking the ball, and keeping wicket. I was pleased to take a nice catch (off Adam Lyth ) and a stumping off Adil, so overall I was pretty happy.
“Obviously losing a couple of early wickets wasn’t ideal but then Trotty and Vincey brought it back together; it was really pleasing. That coupled with the guys coming down the order playing with freedom got us in front and gave us a chance to take a couple of wickets, but unfortunately we ran out of time.”