Missed chances exposes England’s folly in giving gloves to Jonny Bairstow

A s the clock ticked past 4.36pm, the sun already burning through the mid-afternoon haze, there was some literal Bazball to be seen on lime-green Edgbaston outfield – raw, foraged Bazball – as Brendon McCullum took Jonny Bairstow for his wicketkeeping warmup before Australia’s fourth-innings chase.

And of course it wasn’t about the catches, walloped into the gloves with a deliciously grizzled bat. This was all about the hugs, the words in the ear, the million-dollar smile, the sense of voodoo, bro-vibes, man-feelings.

Bairstow laughed and leaned in close, feeling the good stuff. And from a distance it felt like something a little targeted and forensic, emergency mid-game repairs to a tender spot in this team. Because whatever happens on the final day of this relentlessly gripping Test it is probably also time to talk about Jonny.

Although, not in a way where anyone has to feel bad. Certainly his place in this team is utterly nailed down. Bairstow is the spirit animal of Bazball, and not just for the dam-burst of adrenal, biceps-flexing runs over the past year; the rage-hundreds; the way his bat slaps through the ball like a man gleefully demolishing a stud wall with a polo mallet.

Bairstow is 34 this year. It feels these days that his brilliance comes from a place of scars already acquired, of mid-series droppings and points proved. This is very much the Bazball emotional landscape, a sense of something that feels like a balm to the bruises of this sport. This is not the cricket of some cloudless crop of young guns, more a middle-aged catharsis, out there in their Spiderman suits, hitting sixes off Tower Bridge.

To great effect, too. England have played with wonderful verve and skill for four days of this game, have