Jonny Bairstow Feels it Won't be Easy for Australia to Counter England's Ultra-Aggresive Approach

England wicket-keeper batsman Jonny Bairstow has conceded that it won’t be easy for the Aussies to counter the ultra-aggressive ODI batting style of England as an overnight switch in strategy. England made light work of Australia’s score of 304 in the 1^st ODI of the Gillette Series opener at Melbourne on Sunday night and riding on the back of an excellent knock from Jason Roy; the visitors reached the target with utmost ease in the end.

The target of 305 was pretty steep especially considering the history of MCG, and this was the highest score chased down at the iconic ground. “It looks like the way they play is for everyone to go hard and Joe Root is sort of the rock in the middle,” Smith said post-match at the MCG on Sunday night.

“He just plays good cricket and guys bat around him. That works for them, and it’s something we might have to think about as well. Having guys that are going hard and having someone, it might be me, who just bats normally.

“I guess when you do that, perhaps you’re going to have days where you get bowled out for not many. But you back your players to come off more often than not and get those big totals.That’s what the English players are doing at the moment. They’re playing with such freedom and have really good game plans.”

Bairstow who has recently cemented his place in the ODI set-up conceded that the approach has been worked over a period of time under coach Trevor Bayliss. “It’s an individual team thing, isn’t it,” he said ahead of Friday’s second ODI at the Gabba. “They can go out and copy what we do (but) it might not work for them.

“There’s people you’ve also got to have in your team to play around in order for you to score those 300s, 350s, 400s that we have done.

“So just saying ‘oh we’re going to try and do that’, that’s something that we’ve been working on for the last 18 months.

“So it’s a good thing that they’re looking at the way we’re playing because that means we’re obviously doing something right, and long may that continue with the group of players that we’ve got.

“We’re pushing each other at training every day, saying ‘how can we get better?’ With the line-up that we’ve got, we’ve got Adil Rashid and Liam Plunkett coming in at nine and 10, I mean there’s firepower all the way down.”

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