Jonny Bairstow made his best runs when Yorkshire were in trouble
In 2015 Jonny Bairstow played only nine County Championship matches yet scored 1,108 runs at an average of 92.33. Wisden noted that all five of his centuries that summer came with Yorkshire struggling, calling him a good man in a crisis. Four years later he opened the batting in England's World Cup final win.
Bairstow was born in Bradford in 1989 into a cricketing family. His father, David, kept wicket for Yorkshire and England and taught him the game before dying in 1998, when Jonny was eight; he has remained an inspiration. His mother, Janet, became, in 2020, the first woman to serve as a Yorkshire club vice-president.
At St Peter's School in York he was an all-rounder in every sense, playing fly-half in rugby, centre-mid in hockey and right-back in football, and he spent eight years in the Leeds United academy. Cricket won out. After scoring 654 runs for the school in 2007 he became the first winner of Wisden's Young Schools Cricketer of the Year award. On his first-class debut for Yorkshire in 2009, replacing the injured Michael Vaughan, he made 28 and 82, then took the gloves when the regular keeper was hurt.
His maiden first-class century in 2011 was 205 at Trent Bridge, and he was the only Yorkshire batter to pass 1,000 runs that season. Against Durham in 2015 he came in with the side at 191 for 6 and, alongside Tim Bresnan, added an unbeaten 366, a club record for the seventh wicket, finishing on 219 not out.
International cricket followed. He was man of the match in his first ODI series finale with 41 not out from 21 balls, and his Test cap in 2012 was handed over by family friend Geoffrey Boycott. In the 2019 World Cup final at Lord's the scores finished level at 241, the super over was tied as well, and England won on boundaries; Bairstow had opened and made 36. A broken leg kept him out of England's 2022 T20 World Cup triumph. In March 2025 Yorkshire named him red-ball captain.
Source: Jonny Bairstow
