England batsman Jonny Bairstow has expressed his desire to score the most ODI hundreds for England after helping his team beat India by 6 wickets in the second ODI to level the three-match ODI series on Friday (March 26) at Maharashtra Cricket Stadium in Pune.
Bairstow is in sensational form with the bat in the ongoing ODI series, scoring 94 in the first ODI and then on Friday notched up his 11th century (124 runs off 112 balls) and now he is aiming to become the Englishman to have the highest centuries in the ODI format.
With his 11th ODI hundred on Friday in Pune, Bairstow is now only behind Joe Root (16), skipper Eoin Morgan (13), and Marcus Trescothick (12) who are ahead of him in the list of most ODI hundreds for England.
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Coming to the second ODI against India, the 31-year-old scored 124 runs as well as stitched a 175-run partnership with Ben Stokes (99) for the second wicket to help England gun down a 337-run target with more than six overs to spare. He was named Player of the Match for his match-winning ton.
Bairstow said after helping England to their highest successful chase against India, “Well naturally I'd like to have the most ODI hundreds for England. I'm happy. I think that's the biggest thing since opening the batting. I've got 11 [hundreds], I think I've opened only 56-57 [56] times so yeah I'm happy with those figures - but they mean nothing if you don't keep converting them in the future. So, look, I'm happy with how I'm playing cricket at the moment and I'm really enjoying it.”
On his partnership with Stokes in the second ODI against India, the right-hander stated, “You can make the obvious comparisons of being right-handed and left-handed. Because then all of a sudden if there's a left-arm orthodox that's turning it into Ben, then give him the strike because you know the power and how destructive he can be and vice versa.”
He continued, “I think that we complement each other well, like with Jason at the top of the order. But then [Stokes] being the left-hander and scoring in some slightly different areas, you're making the bowler of think all the time as to where they need to deliver the ball. It's a good place to be.”
Referring to England’s 66 runs defeat in the first ODI due to a middle-order collapse, the wicketkeeper-batsman said: “A couple of days ago, we were way ahead of the game, but that's something we spoke about and identified. It is something that we're really pleased with.”
Bairstow also credited England’s batting depth to play with freedom at the top.
He signed off, “Yes absolutely. We have Adil Rashid coming in at 10 or 11. Adil on his own rights has got 10 first-class hundreds. To have that kind of player coming in at 10 or 11, not many teams around the world have that. If you couple that with the power-hitters in Moeen Ali, Curran brothers, the list can go on. So yeah, definitely does give you a lot of confidence knowing that the batting lineup is strong.”
(With PTI Inputs)
