Jonny Bairstow is on hot streak that batters only go through once or twice: Michael Vaughan

Former England captain Michael Vaughan has praised in-form batter Jonny Bairstow for his current red-hot form. However, Vaughan also believes that such a streak are experienced by cricketers only once or twice in their careers. Notably, the right-handed batter is enjoying his best ever year in red-ball cricket with 994 runs at an average of 76.46, which includes six hundreds. His revelation in Test cricket has benefited England largely, who have won all of their last four matches.

First, the 32-year-old batter helped England thrash the World Test Champions New Zealand in a three-match Test series last month. He scored 394 runs at a strike rate of just over 120 and was instrumental in England keeping an average run rate of 4.54 in the series. He continued that momentum by hitting twin hundreds against India in the rescheduled fifth match at Edgbaston. Vaughan also enjoyed a similar kind of run in the 2002-03 season against India and Australia but feels that it was nowhere near Bairstow’s current streak.

“Jonny Bairstow is currently going through the type of hot streak that batters only go through once or twice in their career when they feel almost invincible. I experienced it in 2002-03 when things seemed totally clear and runs were easy to come by. I scored a lot of runs in the summer against India and then continued that form into the Ashes in Australia. But I’m not sure mine was anywhere near as strong as what Jonny is going through at the moment,” Michael Vaughan wrote in his Daily Telegraph column.

Jonny Bairstow is overshadowing the greatest England batter: Michael Vaughan

Vaughan also compared Bairstow’s consistency with that of former England skipper Joe Root, who has been creating and breaking records for fun. Root scored an unbeaten 142-run knock at Edgbaston and was aslo named the Player of the Series for scoring 737 runs. He has been leading England’s Test batting unit all by himself for the last few years but couldn’t win many matches due to a lack of support from other batters.

But now the emergence of Bairstow has changed the tide for the Three Lions, who are not just winning but are also dominating the opponent with an attacking-minded approach. Vaughan feels that Bairstow is even surpassing Root, who he thinks is England’s greatest ever batter in the longest format.

“How well Jonny is playing is shown by the fact that there is someone at the other end, Joe Root, scoring almost as many runs but barely getting mentioned. He is overshadowing the greatest England batter that I’ve ever seen,” Vaughan added.