Out: the England selectors have sent James Anderson poolside for some R and R. Appropriate given his resemblance to Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool.
In: Jonny Bairstow, the low handed slapper, who the West Indies caught wearing one at Lord’s and several at Trent Bridge.
His is a technique suited to reversing and quick scoring on low and slow surfaces, but looks shockingly suspect in Test cricket.
Note the perfect example of the low handed slap with tell-tale horizontal elbows, below, and the direction in which the ball has been hit.
And from a different angle, same shot but another match:
There was much moaning that in county cricket Bairstow would not have been exposed to the pace and hostility of a Roach. But the following image might have been of his first ball at Trent Bridge … but it isn’t.
It is difficult to get hands above the ball with his technical approach and modifying something so ingrained could take more than the ten days between the Second and Third Tests.
