Bairstow will not be satisfied by just playing white-ball cricket in the curtailed upcoming summer.
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Bairstow, who played a key role in England’s World Cup triumph last year, averaged just 23.77 in Ashes 2019 as England conceded the prestigious urn on home soil.
Subsequently, Bairstow was dropped for the New Zealand tour before playing one of the four Tests in the series against South Africa across December and January. He then opted out of going on the Sri Lanka tour that was abandoned in March due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
With the international summer condensed because of the pandemic, England is set to classify players for Test and limited-overs duty owing to the need to play different formats simultaneously.
The 30-year-old Bairstow said he was “not ruling anything out” regarding which format to focus on, and is concentrating firstly on regaining his Test place for the three-match series against the West Indies, starting July 8 in Southampton.
“I want to keep my options very much open,” Bairstow said on a video call on Tuesday. “I’m someone who has always been positive about playing. There have always been challenges that have been asked, whether that’s been keeping wicket or batting in certain position and circumstances, and I’d like to think I’ve risen to those challenges.
“Red-ball cricket has been something that has been a massive part of my career. There is no reason why (concentrating on the limited-overs formats) should be the case at this moment in time.”
Bairstow admitted that he was “disappointed” to lose his wicketkeeping spot in the Test team to Jos Buttler.
“I didn’t feel like I had done anything wrong with my keeping and I was getting complimented highly by people on that,” he said. “It was part and parcel of things that happened but when you think about getting back in, you can only be judged on your last performances and I like to think they were good and I hope they will get me back in the side as long as I score enough runs.”
(Inputs from The Associated Press)