Bairstow blames pitches and media as England struggle

We didn’t bowl too short, we haven’t batted too aggressively, the pitches have been too difficult and the media is being too mean – excuses and denials are cascading out of the England camp as their World Cup campaign teeters.

Just days after England captain Eoin Morgan’s famously churlish press conference, star batsman Jonny Bairstow showcased a victim mentality yesterday when he whinged England had been dudded by the World Cup pitches and were being targeted by the press.

When athletes start bitching about things that are out of their control midway through a major competition, it is cause for concern.

It gives the impression they are distracted or that their comments are a by-product of self-doubt taking root. While there is no question England have the talent to win this World Cup, it is less clear whether they have the required composure.

The angsty interviews by Morgan and Bairstow this week suggest they’re struggling to handle the pressure. The comments from the latter were particularly revealing.

England have lost three of their last six games in this World Cup and now need to beat heavyweights India and New Zealand to lock down a semi-final spot. All they should be focusing on right now is getting back to their best – which is frighteningly good – and making the knock-out stages.

Instead Bairstow went on a rant about how hard done by England were. He began by complaining his team weren’t getting enough support from the UK media.

“People were waiting for us to fail,” Bairstow said in the interview. “They are not willing us on 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.”

Yet this same British media has been drenching the England ODI side in praise for years now, to the extent that it sometimes seemed the team had already won the World Cup.

(Photo by Action Foto Sport/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Before England’s game against Pakistan, The Guardian wrote about the prospect of 500 being scored in that World Cup match under the headline: “England chase more ODI records after being handed same Trent Bridge strip”.

And that’s coming from one of the most measured media outlets in the UK.

The England ODI team has soaked up the compliments and adulation for the past four years. Now they’re shocked to be criticised for performing poorly so far in this World Cup?

Rather than admitting what most cricket observers feel – that England have failed to adapt to the varied conditions and heightened pressure of this tournament – Bairstow and Morgan went into denial mode.

Bairstow started railing against the pitches. He was clearly miffed they were not perfect batting tracks like the roads England have been given at home for years now.

“The pitches that we’ve been playing on the last two years are surely the pitches we (should) be playing on in a World Cup,” he said. “So I don’t know why they’ve changed”.

He then went on to underline the inflexibility many people believe is holding England back. Despite the sluggish pitches in this tournament having demanded a degree of caution from batsmen, Bairstow said his team would continue to bat in their trademark hyper-aggressive style.

“Our method doesn’t change,” he said. “This group has been together for near-on three years now, if not longer. So just because we’ve lost two games in a crunch tournament and people start talking, it’s not going to change the way we go about it.”

Morgan expressed similar sentiments in the wake of England’s loss to Australia on Tuesday. The skipper said England hadn’t shown enough “intent” with the bat and that they had to continue to bat “in their own way”, which was a clear reference to their extremely attacking approach.

Yet it seemed obvious to almost everyone outside of the England camp that excessive aggression was their major shortcoming against Australia, when they were bowled out for 221.

First up, opener James Vince went for a booming drive from just the second ball of their innings and was bowled by Jason Behrendorff. Not long after, Morgan came out at 2/15 on a damp pitch and tried to bat like it was the final overs of a T20 match. Instead of giving respect to the Aussie bowlers and the tricky surface, he ran down the pitch at Behrendorff and then hooked Mitchell Starc straight down fine leg’s gullet.

This was nonsense batting from a national captain at a major moment of a major game in a major tournament. Then England’s next two wickets were lost to catches on the boundary as Bairstow and Jos Buttler tried to smash sixes.

The only member of England’s top six who showed restraint – who tailored his approach to the conditions – was Ben Stokes. Not surprisingly he was also their top scorer with 89 from 115 balls.

Yet England wouldn’t have even been chasing a very good Australian total of 285 if they hadn’t wasted the extremely favourable bowling conditions by being far too short in the first 20 overs.

Not only was this the consensus amongst the TV commentators, journalists and fans, but it was backed up by graphics that showed England had very rarely pitched the ball up in that early period.

Yet instead of noting this failure and vowing to rectify it in their next match, Morgan again buried his head in the sand. He rejected the idea England had bowled too short. In fact, he sneered at it.

Morgan does not seem to handle criticism well. Neither does Bairstow. The fact that two senior members of this England team are more interested in excuses and denials than correcting failures is a huge problem for the hosts.