England must not make Bairstow feel like he is on trial again

Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum must convince Bairstow he is being picked as specialist batsman for his own good – not that of everyone else

When Jonny Bairstow walks out in Hyderabad on Thursday and if Ben Foakes has regained the wicketkeeper berth, it will be the eighth different year that the Yorkshireman has been picked as a specialist batsman for England in Test cricket. In nine years, including 2023, he has been given the gloves in a Test.
‌A return to being a specialist batsman at No 5 would be at my count the 28th change of role in Bairstow’s Test career – taking in to account each pre-match move up or down the order, and each time that he has been given or relinquished of the gloves. The only wonder is that Bairstow has never been picked to open. He has been selected as a specialist batsman everywhere from three to six, and as a keeper-batsman everywhere from four to seven.
‌England’s task in India is not to make Bairstow feel like he is on trial once again. While Alec Stewart averaged 12 runs more in Test cricket from 1990 to 2003 as a specialist batsman than wicketkeeper, Bairstow averages slightly fewer – 36.6 compared to 37.6 – when picked for his batting alone. One explanation is that, without the security provided by the gloves, Bairstow has felt closer to the trapdoor.
‌Sometimes, with good reason. In 2018, after three years as keeper-batsman, Bairstow was picked as a specialist with the bat, owing to his injured finger. His unhappiness at the time was apparent; “That’ll be the hard thing, trying to convince Jonny,” said Trevor Bayliss, then the head coach. Bairstow had one unhappy Test batting, making six and a duck in Southampton, then one back as keeper, before being squeezed out when he was fit again.
‌No matter his evident preference for keeping wicket in the past, Bairstow has suggested that he has become more phlegmatic about his role. Earlier this month Bairstow told Sky Sports that he had “not spoken to anyone” about whether or not he would be keeping wicket in India. “As long as I’m over there, as long as I’m fit and firing, the selection decisions will be taken out of my hands. But look, I’m fairly happy with where I’m at, whether I’m keeping, batting or whatever it is.”
‌The paradox of choice, a term coined by the American psychologist Barry Schwartz, is the notion that, as the number of plausible options expand, so does our capacity to make the wrong pick. For instance, students have been found to write better essays when they have six, rather than 30, subjects to pick from. “Trop de choix tue le choix,” the French say: too much choice kills the choice.
‌Too often, this has been Bairstow’s fate. England have had so many choices about where to use him that they have often made bad ones.
‌Stewart admitted that, for all his pride in keeping for England, ideally he would have rather have been deployed as a specialist batsman, opening. In the 1990s, Stewart’s wish was sacrificed to cover up English weakness: the paucity of reliable runs from other keepers.
‌Bairstow’s preference has been compromised, too, but in the opposite direction. For all his relish for the dual role of keeper-batsman, he has played in an age of underperforming English batting. England long felt that Bairstow’s average of 50.2 for Yorkshire, five runs more than Joe Root, indicated what he could achieve as a specialist batsman. 
That all five of Bairstow’s Test centuries while keeping have come in the first innings of the match, before he has been behind the stumps, hinted at what he could achieve unencumbered by the gloves. And so, despite his fine returns as keeper, England have continually tried to get more runs from him by picking him as a specialist batsman.
‌In 2022, for the first time, this notion was vindicated. Before Stokes’s first Test as permanent captain in 2022, Brendon McCullum told Bairstow to “go out and whack it” at number five; for the first time as a specialist batsman, Bairstow was empowered to bat with the freedom of a wicketkeeper.
‌Four centuries in five innings, beginning with the coruscating 136 at Trent Bridge, a seminal moment in the birth of Bazball, was the result. Under this current management, and after a brutal post-World Cup fitness regime, there is reason to think that, in a settled role at No 5, Bairstow can once again produce his best as a specialist batsman. Now, McCullum and Stokes must convince Bairstow that, this time, he is being moved for his own good – not that of everyone else.
‌Aged 34, and after his gruelling recovery from a broken leg, it would be tempting to say that it is as a pure batsman that Bairstow’s Test future lies; the history of his career, and the knowledge that Brook will crave a return to number five too, tells us that it would be wise to be less sure. In a curious way, it would be apt if, when Bairstow plays his 100th Test in Dharamsala at the end of the series, he does so unsure of what role England will ask him to play in his 101st.