Jonny Bairstow Quotes

You go out onto the playing field every time to win and you will do all you can to do that, but not at all costs and especially not to cheat.

I was a fortnight away from my 16th birthday when the fabled 2005 Ashes series ended. My hero-worship throughout it belonged to Ian Bell – though I don’t think I’ve ever made that abundantly clear to him.

I do enjoy fielding in the deep and I enjoy engaging with the crowd.

You only have to see the rate of divorce in cricket. You’re away so much and then 18 months later, you’re around all the time and not sure what to do with the rest of your life. You go from being at the peak of your powers to being at the bottom of the food chain.

I’ve been through practices during which I’ve felt as though medieval torture would have been easier.

If you’re constantly striving for questions that are never going to be answered, then you’re only being detrimental to your own mental health.

In an Ashes series you have to adapt quickly to the conditions and your rivals. If you don’t, you get found out.

I’ve learnt a lot about Dad from going around the world and listening to other people. Whether I’ve been in Australia, the Caribbean, Leeds, Scarborough or London there’s always someone who’s got a story about him.

When I came into the Yorkshire academy I was christened Bluey almost immediately.

But having gone through two bouts of breast cancer and all the operations and treatments it’s fair to say mum’s a special human being – especially as she had to deal with the tragedy and heartache that went with Dad’s death.

In my head I’m talking all the time.

I’ve not given up my keeping, I want to make that very, very clear. I’m still working hard on my keeping and it’s something I still want to do.

If someone who doesn’t know anything about wicketkeeping finds a reason to criticise, you have to sift it out. It’s about working out how to deal with the criticism while improving your game.

When my dad died, I was eight. Becky was seven. My mum had cancer, the first of two bouts that she’s fought and beaten.

If you can’t motivate yourself to get up and play in front of 30,000-40,000 people, then you’re not in the right job.

Who says we can’t win the World Cup and the Ashes in the same year? Oh yes we can. It all goes back to my motto in life: Be proud of how far you’ve come – and have faith in how far you can still go.

I think it’s something you learn over a period of time; you learn to be more comfortable within yourself, appreciative of what you’ve got and what you haven’t, you realise the talents you have and what you can do and you take on the chin the things that you have to. It’s part and parcel of growing up.

I’ve learnt – and this pleases me – that my dad’s cricketing life and my own will always be intertwined, even though I will finish far behind the number of appearances he made for Yorkshire and also his length of service at Headingley.

When you’re going through difficult times, like I was after the 2013-14 Ashes, you start thinking about different bits. Rugby is a huge passion of mine, a lot of my friends play.

I was only ever briefly angry with my dad for leaving us. It happened shortly after his death, when things were at their darkest and the grief in me was raw and at its worst.

All sportsmen have superstitions, or at least they have routines. You look at Rafa Nadal and the way he organises his water bottles. Me, I always put my left pad and left shoe on first.

It’s all well and good when it’s going good and people have an opinion on how well you’re playing, but it’s the hidden things they don’t see.

As a young kid you stay up late to watch the Ashes, getting told off for not being in bed, and dream of making a hundred against Australia.

But put it this way: if I have a bad day keeping, I know I can put it right with the bat, and vice versa. When it all comes together, happy days.

As a youngster, you take a lot of things to heart, so you have to learn to trust yourself.

Most people believe their family is special. I know mine is.

Even with Yorkshire I had 19 fifties before I got my first hundred.

I played fly-half in rugby, so I could influence the game, and midfield in hockey too. So it is part of my sporting DNA to want to be in the game at all times, to affect what is going on. That’s down to genetics and being ginger, I reckon. We’re special specimens.

I don’t think there have been many dull celebrations after any of my hundreds for England. It’s been an emotional time for me over the last few weeks. Interpret them as you wish.

The less you worry about things the more you just do it naturally.

If your game is to take everything on then you have to stick with that and if it’s your game to get out of the way of the short ball then that’s what you do.

Yorkshire knew how important Scarborough was for me. So I was awarded my county cap there in 2011. That first cap is one of the most precious things I own. The club didn’t tell me that I’d be receiving it, but instead tipped off my mum, making sure she saw the presentation.

I look so much like my dad – same chin, same cheekbones, same forehead – and I play a little like him too. But I am my mother’s son. I am who I am because of her.

The great risk of being alive is always that something can happen to you – or to someone you dearly love – at any moment.

My dad was an only child. His father raised him all but alone after his mother abandoned the two of them. He was only three years old.

My dad passed on his cricketing talent. My mum has enabled me to use it.

It’s important to have a smile with spectators but it’s not always possible.

People don’t actually see what’s gone on behind the scenes – the hard work, when you’re doing your rehab, when you’re sleeping on an ice machine – and yet they have an opinion on it.

You think of what might have been different if dad had been around, or how I might have turned out as a person. You just don’t know. I might not even be playing cricket.

You look at the challenges that have been put in front of me as a cricketer over a period of time. There have been quite a few. I’d like to think I’ve come through most of them.

I’ve always said I don’t mind where I bat and I have exactly the same mindset when I’m batting seven as I would at five.

Well, I grew up in a certain way, through the experiences that I had, so I don’t know how I would have turned out had things been different.