England batsman Jonny Bairstow has said facing Indian spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja will be a great challenge for his team in the upcoming ODI series. The spin duo wreaked havoc on the English batsmen in the recently-concluded Test series and played a pivotal role in helping India bag the series 4-0. Ashwin and Jadeja finished the series as its top-two highest wicket-takers with 28 and 26 scalps respectively and Bairstow has admitted that facing them again will be a no mean task for his countrymen.
Speaking after his team lost the second practice match against India A, he said: “I have faced Ashwin and Jadeja in Test matches. We know they have got skills which are well documented. It’s a great challenge.”
“I am sure when India come over to England with the white ball swinging their batsmen also look at it as a challenge,” he added.
After a good start to the Test series when they had the hosts on backfoot in the opening Test at Rajkot, the English batsmen buckled under the pressure built by Indian spinners. Meanwhile, the wicketkeeper-batsman, who scored 352 runs at 44 per innings in the Test series, continued his fine form with the willow by scoring 64 as his team was all out for 282. The score was never going to be a daunting one for Indian batsmen in these conditions and they comfortably chased it down in the 40th over.
Meanwhile, England would be worried with their middle-order’s performance in the match. The visitors were 163 for 3 by the end of the 27th over but a dramatic collapse saw them getting reduced to 211 for 9 before Adil Rashid (39) and David Willey (38) added 71 runs for the last wicket to help their team post a decent total.
However, Bairstow was unfazed by the middle-order’s performance and said:“We scored 300 nearly twice. I don’t think it’s of concern. As a side we are doing very well and are scoring 300 regularly. But in a way it was a good thing it (loss) happened here than in Pune. It gives us time to refocus, kick our backside a bit before we go to Pune.”
With Jos Buttler set to play as the wicketkeeper-batsman and Joe Root back in the squad, Bairstow is likely to sit out for the first ODI in Pune on January 15 and he is well aware of that.
“I struck the ball well. I was trying to convert my Test form into one-dayers. Sixty five was pleasing, but disappointing not to go on. When Root is back Root plays (ahead of me)..”he said.
“My form recently in India in the Test series was pretty good. The two and a half to three months I had spent in Bangladesh and India, playing Tests in these conditions, have helped me immensely,” he added.
Meanwhile, he is also not expecting a different style from the hosts under newly-appointed skipper Virat Kohli.
“It does not change whether it’s Virat or MS. His (Virat’s) captaincy won’t be dissimilar to what MS has done over the years,” he concluded.