Bairstow name back on scorecards

The shock of red hair is the obvious giveaway. So, too, is the natural talent. Jonathan Bairstow, like his late father David, the former Yorkshire and England wicketkeeper, is a cricketer of rare ability, one who is making a name for himself early. At the start of the season, 18-year-old Jonathan was named the inaugural Young Wisden Schools’ Cricketer of the Year. The pupil form St Peter’s School, York, who is taking his A levels this summer, struck three centuries and 645 runs in eight innings, at a remarkable average of 218 for the school last year. He has already played for Yorkshire’s second XI, the county’s academy side and represented England under- 17s. ‘It was a great season for me and the team, made easier by the people around the school – in and away from the team,’ says Jonathan. An all rounder, he bowls as well as he bats and, not surprisingly, he keeps wicket also. ‘I’m aiming to keep more this season. It keeps you in the game all the time and I love being involved.’ His all round skills are not exclusively reserved for cricket. He is a skilled hockey player and captained the school team over the winter. He has played rugby union for Yorkshire Schools and football for Leeds United under-15s, mirroring his father who played for Bradford City before settling on a life in cricket. David made his Yorkshire debut in 1970 while in the middle of his A levels and the Bairstow name back on scorecards has received plenty of nods of approval from the Yorkshire faithful. ‘There have been passing comments from the crowd when I’ve played at places like Scarborough, which was one of his favourite grounds. There is obviously a big legacy that he has left behind. I am aware of it and it’s a very good thing I think and something I can strive to achieve.’ Jonathan was presented with his award in April at the Wisden 2008 launch dinner in London. ‘Schools cricket has been covered in the almanack since the first edition in 1864,’ according to Scyld Berry, Editor of Wisden 2008, ‘so it’s only appropriate to recognise the best schools cricketer of the year with a similar award – and in Jonathan Bairstow we feel we have a first winner who will achieve much more in the game.’ David Bairstow played for Yorkshire throughout his career, captained the club from 1984 to 1986 and played for England in four Test matches and 20 one day internationals. A never-say-die spirit epitomised a prolific playing career. In 459 first-class matches he scored 13,961 runs at an average of 26.44 with a highest score of 145. He made 961 catches and 137 stumpings; in 429 one day matches, he scored a further 5,439 runs. Ten years after David’s death at the age of 46, Jonathan, who has played club cricket for both Dunnington where he lives and York, and whose mum Janet works behind the scenes for Yorkshire at Headingley Carnegie, is doing his Dad’s memory proud.  

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Strictly speaking

Chris Irvine looks forward to a dazzling Yorkshire cricket season with Darren ‘Dazzler’ Gough.
I’m fitter than I’ve been for ages,’ Darren Gough, the Yorkshire captain, proclaimed on the eve of the new cricket season. His relentless routine has included a month on the road with Strictly Come Dancing Live, the touring version of the BBC programme that his natural rhythm saw him foxtrot to national acclaim in 2005. April is likely to be the beginning of the end of his remarkable 19-year cricket career. Gough is ‘almost certain’ that the forthcoming season will be his last. Star quality was imprinted on the young Dazzler when he made his Yorkshire debut against Middlesex at Lord’s in 1989. England captain Mike Gatting was among the victims of the young fast bowler’s five wickets. Arguably England’s finest pace bowler since Bob Willis, his records speak volumes: England’s all-time highest wicket taker in one-day internationals with 234 and ninth most successful wicket taker for England in Tests with 229 wickets in 58 matches.Who in Yorkshire cricketing circles can forget his four wickets in five balls against Kent at Headingley in 1995? There was no let up on his Yorkshire return last season after three years at Essex. He led by example as the club’s leading fast bowler with 37 county championship wickets and 23 in one-day matches. The same will to succeed has driven him on the dancefloor. Strictly judge Arlene Phillips has no doubt about Gough’s life after cricket. ‘He’ll kill me for saying this, but he could take the lead in a musical. He has a fantastic stage presence and he’s a big man, but when he’s dancing he glides

Monster of a blog
I am a blogger. I blog every day. Well, almost every day. I like blogging. I’m always on the blog, so to speak. In this age of citizen journalism, advocacy journalism, new journalism, whatever label you wish to attach to the head-spinning developments in a fast fragmenting media world, we old fogey remnants of the typewriter and hot metal age are struggling but just about managing to keep pace. The rugby league blog on Times Online was my idea, so I’ve only myself to blame for the monster I’ve created. It devours my copy, enslaves me to my computer and requires a dialogue with thousands of readers, whose comments – the good, bad and occasionally ugly – I upload (see I use words like upload now) and spur me to carry on blogging. It’s not a vicious but a virtual circle. I thought my addiction was red wine. But no, it’s blogging (sometimes with an accompanying glass of the grape). Rugby league followers, bless them, are never short of an opinion or three. I will be blogging my way through the Rugby League World Cup in Australia at the end of November (a blogathon) and there’s a blog book due out at the end of the year. Will I be completely blogged out by then? Enter the blogosphere at www.timesonline.typepad.com/ rugby_league/ to find out.

Chris Irvine is Rugby League Correspondent for the Times  

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March 2008

THANK goodness for the glorious mispronunciation of Lesley Vainikolo's name by the Australian television commentator Peter Sterling, whose garbled attempt at the Tongan man mountain's surname came out as ‘Volcano’. A legend was born, a Krakatoa of a rugby player whose frenzied tryscoring eruptions, up until last summer, lit up the cavernous bowl at Odsal – or the Grattan Stadium as it is officially titled these days – home to the Bradford Bulls.

An honorary Bradfordian after his feats withthe Bulls in rugby league, the Volcano is erupting in rugby union for Gloucester and now England following his headline-grabbing selection in Brian Ashton's squad for the Six Nations Championship. It is a long way from hisdays growing up in Nuku'alofa, the capital of Tonga, which happens to be twinned withWhitby, a little-known fact that a good friend persists in accusing me of having made up.

Lesley's Yorkshire pilgrimage did not happen until he was 22 but what an impact he made during six seasons at Bradford and on the streets of Pudsey, where his outrageous hairstyles, from cornrows and Afros to his braids and beads, stunned onlookers. He left the Bulls as a copper-bottomed Yorkshire hero, although never could the Bradford outfit have imagined that their Tongan Kiwi, with 12 New Zealand rugby league caps to his name, would be playing for England just seven months after switching rugby codes.

As another cross-coder, Leeds-born Jason Robinson, vacated his place on the England wing to run a farm in retirement in came another rugby league great in Vainikolo, six inches taller and six stones heavier than Robinson but with similarly twinkling feet,astonishingly for such a big man. Everything about ‘Big Les’ is big, including a handshake that leaves you wincing for days, for which I can testify after first meeting him on arrival in Bradford in 2002.

Nevertheless, the Volcano risked extinction during his first season. Not so much pyroclastic flow as no flow. Big Les discovered a fondness for burgers. More than once, he had to beprized from fast food joints. He hated the weather and his defending, well, a supertanker turned quicker. But that great Bradford stalwart Brian Noble worked wonders and Vainikolo returned the following season like a man possessed. Bradford won everything that year.

My lasting image of Vainikolo in rugby league is of his thundering hooves beating up the turf at Headingley for a length of the field try (one of 149 he scored in 152 games for Bradford) against Leeds Rhinos. He rumbled over the tryline a Super League record six times in a hammering of  Hull in 2005 and for five tries against Wigan Warriors the season before. Give Big Les a sniff of the whitewash and he was over, notwithstanding the number of tacklers opponents posted to try and stop him.

I was there for his introductory game of rugby union on familiar territory at Headingley in September. The complexities and intricacies of a new game were rumbustiously overcome by his volcanic eruptions and five tries in Gloucester colours against a shattered Leeds Carnegie. Little wonder that Ashton, the England union coach, came knocking, with Vainikolo, despite not yet holding a British passport, free to play for England on the basis of residency qualification under International Rugby Board rules.

An excited Vainikolo informed his old Bradford team-mates at a function that he'd had a call from ‘the big boss man, someone called Andrew.’ This turned out to be England elite rugby director Rob Andrew, another Yorkshireman who knows a winner when he sees one.

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February 2008

THERE is something strangely comforting about Castleford Tigers' home ground and their return in February to the Super League competition after several years yo-yoing between rugby league's top and second tiers, and to where a club of its stature belongs. ‘Classy Cas’ are back in the sport's top flight for the long haul, even though Wheldon Road, or The Jungle as it is popularly known nowadays, does not feature in their future plans.

From 2010, the Tigers propose to leave their existing home for a new lair at Glasshoughton, close to junction 32 of the M62. The roar of the motorway will replace the rattle of the goods trucks that ply the line at the opensided railway end of their patched-up, hopelessly outdated but still endearing home for 81 years.

My wife, born in earshot of the crowd's roar on Wheldon Lane, will not be the only one shedding a tear when it comes to the final hooter in the very last game there. Like all the new grounds that have sprung up in rugby league, Castleford's proposed 15,000-capacity stadium will doubtless glisten and contain every creature comfort – a decent press box, hint, hint – but it will take time to get over the loss of a loveably ramshackle but wonderfully atmospheric and most homely of grounds.

Jacket potatoes on match days knock your microwave chips into a cocked hat, kids get their faces painted and the vibrancy of the place sweeps you along when it's full to bursting. Okay, so the main wooden feels like a few powerful gusts of wind would turn it into matchwood, we hacks in the press seats overload the half-dozen plug sockets with bizarrely implicit faith in an unreliable electricity supply, and the man from the Daily Mail has still not forgiven me for spilling orange over his laptop in the crowded confines, but I love going ‘down the lane’ as locals still refer to it. Having won last year's National League One grand final to achieve promotion, Castleford's opening game of the 2008 Super League season is a televised affair at home on February 9th to Catalans Dragons, the French club.

That fixture alone is a mark of how far Castleford and the game have come since the original proposal to merge Cas, Wakefield Trinity and Featherstone Rovers as part of the first Super League draft; a crazy idea that was rightly kicked into touch. With Castleford and Wakefield prospering in their own right and Featherstone back up in the first division, these are encouraging times for West Yorkshire's rugby league triangle. And when it comes to moving, Castleford will hopefully do so as holders of a three-year Super League licence under the new franchising system from 2009. ‘It will be very sad to leave,’ Richard Wright, the Castleford chief executive, concedes.

‘It's been a fabulous venue for top quality rugby league for many years. But you have to look to the future. ‘Things change, and in order to survive you have to change with it. The new stadium will be the start of a new era for the club. It gives us the opportunity for the first time to be able to sustain a challenge at the very top of Super League.

The licence system is raising the standard, and the facilities we will have will give us what we need.’ Let's hope the solid oak gate commemorating Arthur Atkinson, one of Castleford's finest who was born a stone's throw from the ground and was the club's first Great Britain international, makes the short journey to Glasshoughton, along with memories of a host of heroes past and the prospect of many more to come.

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