Jonny Bairstow is set to miss this year’s Indian Premier League and focus on preparing for the Ashes as he continues his comeback from last summer’s broken leg.
One of the main catalysts for the Test team’s surging turnaround in results, Bairstow missed the entire winter – a T20 World Cup win and Test tours of Pakistan and New Zealand – after suffering multiple fractures, a dislocated ankle and ligament damage from a freak slip on the golf course back in September.
The 33-year-old underwent successful surgery on his left leg – including the insertion of a metal plate – and has made encouraging progress of late. After a return to running outdoors last month, Bairstow has recently begun hitting balls in the nets again.
But the IPL that gets under way on 31 March and runs until the end of May is expected to come too soon. His franchise, Punjab Kings, would have to keep an overseas slot vacant until midway through the tournament and, as such, Bairstow is instead expected to plot his return to playing back at Yorkshire.
No date has been set but Brendon McCullum, England’s Test head coach, said in December that Bairstow will return to his side when fully fit. Both he and the captain, Ben Stokes, have since admitted that a significant selection headache will be the upshot, however, as they plan for an Ashes campaign that starts on 16 June at Edgbaston.
Bairstow positively glowed with form in the middle order last season, four centuries in five innings against New Zealand and India living out the positivity ordered by Stokes and McCullum and kickstarting the team’s run of 10 wins in 12 Test matches.
But the last six of those saw Bairstow’s fellow Yorkshireman, Harry Brook, deputise at No 5 in similarly jaw-dropping fashion, cracking four centuries in his first six appearances and finding himself spoken of as a generational talent.
As such, a reshuffled batting order will be required and all eyes will be on whether Bairstow even keeps wicket during his domestic comeback to open an alternative route in. After the recent 1-1 draw in New Zealand, McCullum has said the team will be “brave” in selection but added: “What we can’t do is try and crowbar people in.”
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Stokes meanwhile is heading to the IPL amid concerns over the knee injury that curtailed his role as a bowler in New Zealand. Mark Wood and Jofra Archer, his two fastest bowlers, also have deals, with Brook and Joe Root the other recent Test players set to leave for the two-month tournament at the end of the week.