After Ollie Pope dropped out of England's side for the fourth Ashes Test, Ben Gardner wonders whether the innings which set Pope on course for Australia deprived England of a player who might have made a difference.
Ashes defeats inevitably invite musings on the hypothetical. What if England had shelved the drive after lunch at Perth? What if Snicko were Ultraedge, or Harry Brook had held onto his half-chances at Adelaide? What if Ben Duckett had opted for a quiet Noosa night-in with a pizza and a movie instead?
Let’s undertake another thought experiment, but cast our minds back further, to England’s first Test of 2024. England were trailing by 190, Back then, no one won in India, especially not from that sort of position on that sort of pitch. They were still behind when the fifth wicket fell. At which point, Ollie Pope played one of the most remarkable innings by an Englishman in their Test history. Unfurling every variety of scoop, dab and sweep, he rode his luck to within four of a double century, giving debutant Tom Hartley lead enough to secure a win for the ages. For Pope, it looked like a new chapter, all that promise and struggle culminating in an innings that showed his best, whirring, ticking, inventing the game in front of him, the last ball out of his head each time to prepare for the challenge of the new. He had arrived, it seemed. And when it came to the start of the English summer, with Harry Brook returning and Jamie Smith emerging, despite Pope failing to recreate the same brilliance through the next four Tests, it was Jonny Bairstow who was discarded to make room, his Test career ended in that 1-4 defeat.
Had Hyderabad not happened, what decision might England have made? For Bairstow, it was a curious end to a curious career, the 100-Test man who always seemed to be battling for his place, and for acceptance. Perhaps that’s why it only took one poor series for the call to come, and a series that is less poor than many remember. Bairstow failed to make it to 40 in the series, but also made it to 25 seven times out of 10. (Pope, for what it’s worth, did so twice.)
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It’s the finality of Bairstow’s axing which, in hindsight, is most jarring. At the time, it felt like a natural moment to look to the future and to look at someone else. But was it impossible to think he might still be able to contribute, that when it came to a decisive moment, an older, if not always cooler head might prevail? Bairstow is the only Englishman with multiple Test hundreds in Australia since 2010/11, and averaged 46 in Division One of the County Championship this year. Picking the known quantity who won’t be fazed by the occasion might not have been the boldest move, but that doesn’t make it the wrong one. And yet, despite Bairstow being a contracted player until a few months ago, England have been determined to pick anyone but him. And now we’re here, England’s No.3 on Boxing Day without a first-class hundred, wondering again how it came to this.
When England needed a reserve batter to face Sri Lanka in 2024 it was Dan Lawrence, not Bairstow, who got another go. When they needed a back-up back-up keeper in New Zealand, they sent for Ollie Robinson. When they needed a one-game fill-in with the chance to secure a rare five-Test series win, they went for the kid without a professional hundred, rather than the 100-Test veteran who had made two centuries in the last decider between the two sides just three years previously. How strange it feels now that those were the last two hundreds of his Test career, bringing to an end as they did a five-innings streak that might just be the greatest thing this sport has ever seen.
It bears repeating just how good Bairstow was from that early 2022 last-chance ton until the end of the 2023 Ashes. He averaged 58, with six hundreds. He broke bones and came back swinging. He was the man as England embarked upon a mode of playing never tried in the same way before that, to begin with, delivered results they could only dream of. Bazball has never quite clicked since it lost its spirit king, who found a quiet spot of vengeful zen in that 2022 summer.
It’s that belligerence, as much as his runs, that England have missed this winter. Often their demeanor in the field has had a collective deference, a meekness, even. On the third morning at Adelaide, Ben Stokes ran in after a play and miss to ask whether he should go for a review and got almost nothing in response, neither a yes or a no, just a shrug of the shoulders. Bairstow would have something to say. Australia is not a place for weak men, and Bairstow is not a weak man. He has that necessary innate dislike of Australians, the kind that makes you headbutt one as a greeting.
Ashes tours end careers, as this one may well have done to Pope, preferred to Bairstow all that time ago. But spare a thought for a man who took it to Australia as well as any of his teammates, whose career was ended not in Australia, but because of it, when he might still have had more to give.
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