“His strike rate jumped from 20 to 150 after Kohli sledged him,” says James Anderson on Bairstow

England defeated India by seven wickets in the rescheduled fifth Test at Edgbaston while a large part of the consideration went on to the on-field spicy trade that occurred among Bairstow and Kohli during the first innings.

England defeated India by seven wickets in the rescheduled fifth Test at Edgbaston, Birmingham and as a result, the five-match series ended at 2-2. 

Root and Bairstow played a knock of 142 and 114 respectively, and the pair framed an unbeaten stand of 269 runs partnership for the fourth wicket partnership. Both batters scored at a fair strike rate and India had no answers on how to stop them. 

However, a large part of the consideration went on to the on-field spicy trade that occurred between Bairstow and Kohli during the first innings of the Test. Now, England pacer James Anderson has given his interpretation of the episode and he also revealed what Bairstow had said in the dressing room about the exchange with Kohli.

“Jonny was about 80 not out at the break in the first innings and Virat had been going at him and sledging him a lot. This was early in his innings as well I don’t know if you saw the strike-rate difference? His strike rate was about 20 before Virat started sledging him and about 150 after he sledged him,”

Anderson said on the Tailenders Podcast. 

“His first words back in the dressing room at lunch were: ‘When will they learn to shut it?’ As Jimmy Neesham put it in his tweet, if there’s somebody you don’t want to rub up the wrong way and get them proper in the zone, into the game mode, it is Jonny Bairstow,”

he added.

Bairstow was batting at first having scored 13 from 61 balls and enduring a couple of near calamities. But it all changed when Virat Kohli decided to launch a few verbal volleys at Bairstow. 

The two quarrelled for a while on the field and Bairstow then, at that point, continued to crush 93 off his next 79 deliveries.

“We have played against each other for a solid 10 years now. It’s a bit of craic. We are fiercely competitive on the field and that’s what it is about. We are playing Test cricket and we are two competitors. That’s why we play the game and it brings the best out of us. Whatever it takes, you want to get your team over the line and that’s part and parcel of the game,”

Bairstow had said in a video shared on Twitter by Sky Sports News.