England’s Jonny Bairstow elated with his first ever IPL experience

There was a time when England found it beneath their reputation to send their players to the Indian Premier League. This all changed once Kevin Pietersen challenged the norm and now we see many England players participating in the league.  Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Liam Plunkett, Stuart Broad, Eoin Morgan, Paul Collingwood are just some of the names who have played in the IPL over the years.

However, none of them have had such an impact as Jonny Bairstow did in his short stint of 10 matches with Sunrisers Hyderabad. Though his time in IPL 2019 came to an end with a duck, he impressed everyone enough with 445 runs in 10 matches, including a century and two half-centuries. He also formed an amazing opening partnership with David Warner, adding four-century partnerships.

I’ve really, really wanted to play IPL for a number of years

The Bairstow and Warner combination contributed 962 runs, which is a total of 71% of the runs scored by the team. Now Jonny Bairstow’s departure brings unhappiness to SRH fans, but he mentioned that he is carrying a bagful of memories with him.

“It’s not difficult to motivate yourself at all. It’s a competition that I’ve really, really wanted to play a number of years. You hear stories about people coming over and playing, and it being such a fantastic competition. The fans, how fanatical they are, the atmosphere at the ground. The whole way it’s put together is brilliant. If you can’t motivate yourself to get up and play in front of 30,000-40,000 people, then you’re not in the right job,” Bairstow was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

Jonny Bairstow didn’t expect to get picked in the SRH playing XI ahead of the likes of Kane Williamson and Martin Guptill. But he took the opportunity with both hands, given that he also kept wickets giving the team management a chance to play an extra player.

“With the four overseas [players] that can play in any team, and you look at the overseas [players] that we’ve got within the squad, by no means did I think I’d be starting the tournament,” Bairstow further added.

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