‘I don’t think there’s too much worry…’ – Jonny Bairstow opens up on England’s title defense in 2023 ODI World Cup

On 5 October 2023, England will begin their ODI World Cup campaign at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad with an aim to defend the title that they won after defeating New Zealand in a dramatic 2019 ODI World Cup final. A provisional squad have already been announced by the England Cricket Board (ECB) on 16 August.

Now, the England wicketkeeper, Jonny Bairstow had an exclusive chat with ESPNCricinfo and opened up about his team’s chances to defend the title. Bairstow claimed that the available group of players have a great amount of experience among them and that would make the mega event great fun.    

“I don’t think that’s too much of a worry when the group has played together for seven or eight years.” – Jonny Bairstow

He said: “We’ll rock up to Cardiff and see all the lads: it’ll be just like normal. It’s great to have a group that have got a wealth of experience coming back together. Naturally, there’ll be conversations around, ‘well, you’re not playing much 50-over cricket together’ and all this stuff. But the guys have been playing Test cricket or T20 cricket and to have the skillset to play both of those is a skillset that you’re able to take both parts of into 50-over cricket. It can throw different bits at you.”

“It is going to be good fun. I don’t think there’s too much worry about cohesion, or people not having played together for two, six, 12, 18 months – whatever it may be. I don’t think that’s too much of a worry when the group has played together for seven or eight years. It’s one of those where you just fit back and you slot back into your roles,” Jonny Bairstow concluded. Since 2019, England have played 36 ODIs so far. However, recently they played a four-match home T20I series against the Kiwis and now, from 9 September, they will play a four-match home ODI series against the same opponent. The T20I series ended at a scoreline of 2-2.