“Difficult to say”: Jonny Bairstow unsure of time frame to recover from golf injury

Jonny Bairstow unsure of time frame: The English batter is highly disappointed at missing ICC T20 World Cup 2022.

At the cost of sounding repetitive, England batter Jonny Bairstow admitted to be gutted for missing the ongoing tour of Australia and the imminent ICC T20 World Cup 2022 down under.

One of the batters to watch out for in the World Cup in the general run of things, Bairstow suffered a freak injury while playing golf to do unwanted but immense damage to his left leg.

“I’m absolutely gutted. To have been on a phone call with Motty [Matthew Mott, head coach] and Jos [Buttler, captain] around the World Cup [and] potentially open the batting [with Buttler]. Unfortunately, to have an injury to the leg is really disappointing,” Bairstow told BT Sport in a video posted by their Twitter handle.

While all of Bairstow’s T20Is in 2022 had come in the middle-order, his phenomenal Test form had motivated the English team management to promote him as an opening batter in Australia. Had Bairstow not suffered an injury, he would’ve opened in the shortest format for the first time since ICC T20 World Cup 2021.

Jonny Bairstow unsure of time frame to recover from golf injury

Bairstow, whose scary and unreal swollen leg images had gone viral back then, divulged technical details about what all he managed to hurt on a golf course. Asked about a particular time frame with respect to a return to the cricket field, Bairstow acknowledged to be unsure of the same for now.

“Broken my fibula in three places. Got a plate in that. Dislocated my ankle at the same time. Done something called as syndesmosis as well with a couple of more little bits to add to it.

“Time frame [to recover] is difficult to say at this point in time. It is not going to be this year. We’ll be on to the next year. And look we’ll set some targets further down the line,” Bairstow mentioned.

England should consider themselves lucky that they still have an explosive opening pair of Buttler and Alex Hales in the absence of Bairstow and Jason Roy. Opening the batting together for the first time at the highest level, Buttler and Hales put together a match-winning 68-ball 132-run opening stand in the recently concluded first T20I in Perth.

About the author

Dixit Bhargav

Born and brought up in Pathankot, Dixit Bhargav is an engineering and sports management graduate who works as a Cricket Editor at The SportsRush. Having written more than 10,000 articles across more than five years at TSR, his first cricketing memory dates back to 2002 when former India captain Sourav Ganguly had waved his jersey at the historic Lord’s balcony. What followed for an 8-year-old was an instant adulation for both Ganguly and the sport. The optimist in him is waiting for the day when Punjab Kings will win their maiden Indian Premier League title. When not watching cricket, he is mostly found in a cinema hall watching a Punjabi movie.

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