Jonny Bairstow on England's World Cup prospects: Chill out guys. You're panicking

HUW TURBERVILL: Bairstow was going to the theatre, and it was to be hoped he would be left alone. In an extremely affable way, he refused to tell us what the show was, but we had some fun speculating. The Play That Goes Wrong, anyone?

Jonny Bairstow knows everyone has an opinion on social media these days. But on the way to this interview he had to deal with a much older problem – an opinionated taxi driver, keen to share his views on where England were going wrong in this World Cup.

That evening Bairstow was going to the theatre, and it was to be hoped he would be left alone. In an extremely affable way, he refused to tell us what the show was, but we had some fun speculating. The Play That Goes Wrong, anyone?

England have lost to Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia of course, and may well now have to beat both India (on Sunday) and New Zealand (Wednesday) to reach the semi-finals.

Bairstow, 28, believes England are being written off prematurely of course.

“We’ve obviously messed a couple of games up,” he said. “The India game is huge now but we have a good record against them. Last summer we played really good cricket against them and we won that series so I think we go about it the same way. Our method doesn’t change. Granted we’ve lost a couple of games but all of a sudden if you go striving for different things from what has stood you in good stead over a period of time then you’re searching for something that you are probably not going to find the answer to.

“We obviously know the following that India have and it should be a cracking atmosphere. I'm hoping a lot of England fans turn up. It's a day off. They don't have to miss a day of work and they'll all be singing 'please don't take me home', hopefully, so that will be good. It is going to be good fun. We've had some good experiences at Edgbaston and it is a great place to play. With the fans so vocal there, it should be a cracker."

^{Jonny Bairstow and England may need to win both of their last two World Cup group matches}

The observation was made to Bairstow that it does not take much for English sporting fans to become fatalistic… “Tell me about it. I’ve had it all this morning as well. I don’t read it [the criticism] but you can’t escape it. It’s part and parcel of the job we’re in. I was on the radio this morning. I was surprised with a clip of [Michael] Vaughan's comments at 8.30am. Bloody hell. That's pretty rich.

“You can't be seen doing anything without someone having an opinion on it. I chuckled at the taxi man. Of course people are going to say things. You walk down the street wearing the wrong pair of trainers and your sponsors fire you. It's as simple as that.

"People now are paid to have an opinion, so they have to have one. Because we've done so well, any opportunity for someone to see we've lost two games [in a row], they were always going to jump on it. People were waiting for us to fail. They are not willing us to win, in many ways, they are waiting for you to get that loss, so they can jump on your throat. It's a typical English thing to do, in every sport.

“We’re fortunate to be doing what we’re doing and we’ve potentially got a chance of doing something special. You now have four knockout games all the way to the end of the tournament so that’s quite exciting. We have Australia, India, New Zealand – all crunch games – you’ve then got the semi-final and final. That means you’re up to speed. If you’ve got, say, two teams further down the table as your last two games then going into knockout games with bowlers bowling at 90mph would be quite a drastic change. It’s just getting through it.”

In regard to the defeat to Australia, he said: “We bowled really well and we were a bit unlucky at Lord’s not to take two, maybe three early wickets. I thought the way Chris Woakes bowled to both David Warner and Aaron Finch was exceptional. We fielded fairly well and then batting-wise we lost early wickets – if you lose early wickets no matter who you’re playing against, you’re going to find it difficult. We’re lucky we have a long tail but having a long tail when we still need 200 is going to be challenging, no matter what.

“You have to give bit of credit early on to the way Jason Behrendorff and Mitchell Starc bowled. They have world-class skills. That ball that got James Vince early on was decent. He’ll be disappointed to miss it but it was still a decent piece of bowling. Generally [Behrendorff] is not a massive swinger of the ball as a general rule and we know the new balls, being white, only swing for an over or so maximum.”

There is clearly a belief running through the England camp that the pitches – lower and slower than they have been playing on at home in the last year or so – are not aiding the national cause.

“The pitches throughout the tournament have not been as true as they have been – whether in that Pakistan series or last summer. Whether that’s dictated by the weather, the ICC or whatever you want to put that down to I have no idea. I don’t know why they’ve changed. That wasn’t a typical Oval wicket we played South Africa on in the opening game. It wasn’t a typical Trent Bridge wicket we played Pakistan on. It wasn’t a typical Lord’s wicket that we played on the other day. Yes the overheads were different. But they’re not the typical wickets we’ve been playing on over two-and-a-bit years. That’s just factual. The scores have not been as high as they have been over the last two years in England.”

^{Bairstow and England have been struggling for form}

When it was mentioned the conspiracy theorists say the pitches have been prepared to suit India, he would not be drawn.

“I think we have been true to ourselves because we have prepared exactly the same way. We’ve obviously had a couple of people who have been injured in Jason Roy, and Morgy did his finger in the Pakistan series and there’s been a couple of niggles here and there. So there have been bits that you can question and look into but actually the way we’ve played – I don’t see it being a massive change.”

Bairstow, who was speaking after visiting a Chance to Shine school as part of Yorkshire Tea National Cricket Week, has looked in pretty good nick so far with 245 runs at 35 so far, including 90 against Afghanistan. He was one of three frontline batsmen out hooking, caught on the boundary against Australia, suggesting England are maintaining their aggressive approach, no matter what the conditions are... but he says England have shown some adaptability.

“Say when I got 90 [against Afghanistan] off 130 balls everyone went on about the fact it was my slowest 50. It was off 61 balls. Like that’s still not slow but the media or whoever it may be have got so used to this side consistently scoring 350-plus and someone scoring a hundred off 60 balls. If all of a sudden you’re 40 for 0 off 10 everyone goes, ‘Why are they going so slow?’ Australia’s top two have hundreds off 120-130 balls and they’ve been winning. Kane Williamson’s got a hundred off 130 balls.

“We’ve done it for such a long period of time and this group has been together for near-on three years now, if not longer. So just because we’ve lost two games – yes it’s in a crunch tournament and people start talking – it’s not going to change the way we go about it. I'm not making excuses, we've not played well enough to beat sides when we should have done. We should have got over the line in at least two of the three.”

Asked if Ben Stokes has shown the way in terms of innings building, he said: “It depends on how you want to interpret it. I think you can look at the way Rooty scored his runs over a period of time. Different people go about it different ways in different circumstances. He's played really well, has Stokesy, make no qualms about it. What works for him might not work for other people.”

He insists he is still enjoying the World Cup. "Yeah, absolutely. I didn't play in that last World Cup so to play in this, hopefully it's not my last either. We're still in the running. Everyone's speaking as if we're eighth or ninth in the table, it's like bloody Nora. Chill out guys. You're panicking."

Yorkshire Tea and national charity Chance to Shine are inspiring thousands of children to play, learn and develop through cricket. Donations to the charity are being matched £ for £ by Charity Patron Adrian Beecroft, support today at chancetoshine.org/donate