Jonny Bairstow has been England’s most in-form batter this year. In fact, he is the leading run-getter in 2022 in Test cricket. Yet, the man who terrorised New Zealand, with two brutal hundreds, could hardly lay bat on ball as Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah put him through a trial by fire late on day two as he went back unbeaten on 12 off 47 balls to fight another day. He would have hoped that a brighter forecast with the sun out on day three at Edgbaston on Sunday, would have made life a lot easier. But he didn’t find any favours from both Bumrah and Shami. Shami was relentless with his line and cut Bairstow into half at least a dozen times. He also used the away-going delivery smartly to induce the false shot. He remained scoreless for 20 deliveries as all the talk of 'Bazball' went out of the window.
Then, Virat Kohli, standing at slip, made the mistake that Andrew Flintoff did in the World T20 match at Durban against India. Awaken a sleeping giant. Flintoff’s angry exchange with Yuvraj Singh pumped him up to smash Stuart Broad for six sixes in an over. He should have also remembered what happened when someone from the England camp threw a few jellybeans on the pitch when Zaheer Khan walked into bat in the 2007 Trent Bridge Test. The left-arm seamer ran through England and bowled India to a famous win with an angry, incisive spell. On Sunday, Kohli too made the mistake of poking the bear. After the umpteenth play and miss off Shami, Kohli who was talking non-stop from the slips, yelled out to Bairstow, “a bit quicker than Southee, eh?” Bairstow signalled to the umpires with his gloves that the former Indian captain is going overboard with the trash talk. Kohli walked up to him and asked him to “shut up, stand and
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