England batsman Jonny Bairstow is in the form of his life with the bat right now after hitting another hundred in the win over India. Bairstow hit an unbeaten 114 to take England to a seven-wicket victory in the rearranged final test of the five-match series with India, to earn a 2-2 draw.
In his last five test innings, Bairstow has hit scores of 136, 162, 71*, 106 and 114*, with the 32-year-old having finally found the required consistency with the bat in this format of the game. He is arguably the player who has thrived most under the new era of Brendon McCullum as coach, and Ben Stokes as captain, with the duo having adapted a far more aggressive approach than in recent years.
However, it might not have always been like this for Bairstow, with him having spent eight years in the academy at Leeds United as a youngster. Speaking to the Daily Mail in 2016, Bairstow revealed he played alongside the likes of Fabian Delph and Danny Rose at Leeds, but always had the feeling he wouldn’t ever have the quality to make it professionally in football.
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He said: “I also played football at Leeds United from about seven through to 15, starting up front and ending up at right back, but I don’t think I was ever going to be good enough.
“It was a strong age group, with people like Danny Rose, Matty Lowton, who’s now at Burnley, Fabian Delph and Tom Taiwo and Michael Woods who were at Chelsea.
“Fabian was the skinniest kid in the group but he was so strong while Danny was the hardest tackler. He used to fly in like he does now for Spurs.”
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