England vs Pakistan 2016: 5 player battles to watch out for

#3 Jonny Bairstow vs Wahab Riaz

Bairstow’s recent rise amidst the English batting galleries has been nothing short of exemplary

Jonny Bairstow’s meteoric rise through the ranks in the English Test arena of late has been the one to stand and behold as the 26-year-old Yorkshireman has cemented his place in the England side, perhaps not as the best wicketkeeper-batsman, but surely as a proper batsman at No. 5. His last 10 Test innings feature three centuries – two against Sri Lanka in the last series, and one against South Africa in Durban last year – and one fifty. 1591 runs from 27 Tests at 39.77 may not put him in the league that his fellow Yorkshireman and England’s new No. 3 belongs, but has certainly helped him carve out a niche for himself batting in the middle order.

Nevertheless, the patience that Bairstow has shown of late, by virtue of which he has claimed a spot in the team as a Test batsman, may be put to some rigorous test when one of the fastest bowlers in the Pakistani attack, and the one who prefers the old ball over the new one, Wahab Riaz, nails in his reverse-swinging yorkers. The art invented by Riaz’s senior pros – most noticeably the duo of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis – makes swing independent of the external conditions and dependent only upon how well you maintain the ball.

At Riaz’s speeds, with deliveries touching the 150kmph mark and even exceeding it on a regular basis, facing him with the old ball may be a challenge for a middle-order batsman like Bairstow.