Jonny Bairstow exclusive: ‘I heard my leg snap. Then I was screaming uncontrollably’

The irony was not lost on Jonny Bairstow. At the precise moment Rob Key, England's managing director, was proclaiming him as the opening batsman for England's T20 World Cup campaign, Bairstow was in the back of a car in Yorkshire, his shattered leg propped up on the rear passenger seat, in desperate search of a hospital.

It was Friday, September 2, and Bairstow had just suffered the kind of freak injury that every sportsperson must dread – a badly broken leg and dislocated ankle. To compound his misery, it had been sustained not on the cricket field, but during a gentle game of golf with two friends.

“I wasn’t even going to play that morning,” says Bairstow, who had learned of his place in England's World Cup squad the day before through phone calls with white-ball coach Matthew Mott and captain Jos Buttler.

The circumstances of the injury have been the subject of much feverish speculation – the most outlandish suggesting Bairstow had been slide-tackled by his Test captain Ben Stokes in a bid to avoid losing a £10,000 wager. A WhatsApp voice note purporting to describe the incident quickly circulated online; such was its reach, even Bairstow's mum, Janet, had heard it.

At this, he can manage a grim laugh. “I’d never played Ganton [the golf club near Scarborough mentioned in the voice note], I hadn’t seen Stokesy since the previous Test match and no Yorkshireman has ever played for 10 grand! Fair play to the lad [who created the voice note], he’s got a good imagination on him.”

The facts – as outlined to Telegraph Sport over lunch in Leeds – are rather more prosaic, even if the injury itself and the journey to seek treatment were not. Bairstow had, in fact, just played the third hole at Pannal Golf Club near Harrogate when he walked off the side of the green.

“There’s a fairly steep slope that goes down to the next tee box,” he says. “I’ve played that course many times and because we were playing early morning, whether the course had been watered or it was dew, it was slippy.

"Normally when you slip you fall on your bum, which would have been fine as there’s plenty of cushion in there. Except this time I tried to regain my balance, my left ankle turned right, dislocated and my weight went through my left lower leg. I heard it snap straight away.

“I took a couple of steps down then slipped. By the time I crumpled into a heap, I was three-quarters of the way down. It’s all a blur, it happened so quickly.

“I yelped. Uncontrollable screams, the sort you hear on a rugby field. The adrenaline kicked in, and I knew I needed an ambulance. We rang the head physio at England straight away and asked where I needed to go and what I needed to do. The next three hours without painkillers were not too fun."

With no hope of being able to walk the 500 yards back to the clubhouse, Bairstow was lifted gingerly on to the back of a golf cart, his mangled foot raised on the back seat, and driven back to the car park.

"I was trying to be incognito and pretending it was OK" he recalled. "I got into my mate’s car and went to the hospital, 20 minutes away. I was on autopilot trying not to move it. I hopped from car to A&E and gave my name, but there was a long wait to see anyone so we made the decision to go to a bigger hospital in York, where the wait was shorter.”

The extent of the injury soon became clear. Bairstow had multiple fractures in his left fibula, which required a five-inch plate – leaving significant scars – when he was operated on in London a few days later. He also dislocated his ankle, with some damage to both the syndesmosis and lateral ligaments. It was not set at a nasty angle, because the dislocation had popped out, then in again.

Weeks later, he is still having to manage swelling. There is no set return date, but it will not be until spring at the earliest, ruling him out of not just the World Cup, but also the one-dayers against Australia and South Africa, and the three-Test series in Pakistan.

“Everything should heal, but it will take time,” Bairstow says. “Naturally I am desperately disappointed. I have been quite upbeat for the last month, because it is such a freakish thing that’s happened, it’s difficult to get angry about. It’s such a freakish thing that’s occurred.”

In Sri Lanka in 2018, Bairstow missed two Test matches due to an injury suffered playing football, and has now gone down playing golf. “I’m looking forward to touch rugby being brought back so I can complete the set,” he laughs.

Already, Bairstow is settled into a new, and much restricted, way of living. “Having slept in an Aircast boot, I wake, take a lot of supplements, calcium, fish oils, stuff like that. That's fantastic,” he says with a grimace.

Then it is into his exercises, using the GameReady recovery tools, icing, compressing and trying to coax some movement from his ankle, using towels or belts. Rinse, repeat.

To get about, he has a knee rover, which is like a scooter with one knee raised, and a pair of 'Cool Crutches', a brand created by a friend that has helped prevent bruising and blistering of the hands for crutch users. Getting out, though, has been rare so far, with a trip to watch Leeds in the Super League Grand Final at Old Trafford a rare chink of light.

“For someone who is pretty active and social, sitting on your bum doing nothing isn’t necessarily the easiest thing to do,” he says.

The other bitter twist in this tale is that, prior to his injury, Bairstow was having the year of his life. He had doubled his tally of Test centuries, to 12, with four of them coming in five remarkable innings as England swept to four giddy wins at the start of the Stokes-Brendon McCullum era. With 589 runs from 578 balls, at an average of 196, Bairstow’s must rank among the most extraordinary spells of form in England's recent Test history.

Each of those six centuries was special in its own way, and began with England in a spot of bother. In Sydney, the first Test of the year, he came in at 36 for four in response to 416 and helped avert an Ashes whitewash. In Antigua, England were 48 for four on the first morning of a much-discussed – and swiftly-shelved – red-ball reset. At Trent Bridge, they were 56 for three chasing 299, and at Headingley, they were 17 for three (then 55 for six) in response to 329. Edgbaston, where he made twin tons for the first time, saw him come at 44 for three in response to 416, then 109 for three chasing 378.

The partnership that carried England to victory over India at Edgbaston, with Joe Root, is one of the moments Bairstow picks out as highlights of the summer. Others include running towards his family and friends to celebrate his hundred at Headingley, and the barbecue he hosted for his team-mates at home before that Test match.

It has been, in Bairstow’s mind, a “transformation” since November 2021, when he arrived in quarantine in Australia from a bubble in Dubai at a low ebb.

“That was horrific,” he says. “That was one of the worst times I’ve had. It was bleak. It put me in a strange place, to be honest. Coming out of the UAE, where we should have done better in the World Cup, then to not play the first Test of the Ashes, and wonder when I would get a game.

“I got recalled for the Boxing Day Test, and I was pleased to be playing. I felt good at the crease. Sydney came around, and since then everything has gone pretty well. I broke my thumb so didn’t play in Hobart, but things have been good from that point on."

When McCullum was appointed, he called Bairstow and told him he would be batting No5. “That was it,” he says. “It was refreshing to be backed by someone without any ifs and buts.”

McCullum added that he felt the IPL [where Bairstow was playing for Punjab Kings] was perfect preparation for the style of cricket he hoped to play, because he was up against the best players in the world. “He told me we were looking to take people on, which we did all summer”.

Bairstow, 33, has benefited from McCullum and Stokes’ straightforward management style. When he woke up from his operation, Stokes had posted about him on Instagram, praising his contribution to the summer, aware that a little pick-me-up might be required. At one stage at Headingley, McCullum said to him: "Get your Sudoku book, come and sit next to me and shut up."

“Different things make people tick,” says Bairstow. “I don’t like watching too much. I will try to take my mind off and do other bits. I have been trying to find Baz to chew his ear off while doing the sudoku, because he’s generally doing a cryptic crossword that takes him two days to find three answers.

“The clarity around how we are playing our cricket, that suits the way I play, too. I am not worried about hanging around and I have always wanted to put pressure back on the opposition.

“It’s man management, how you get the best out of people. That has been a really encouraging sign this summer. We are starting to get the best out of people, and find out more about each other. On and off the field, tightening as a group, the cohesion we have, scrapping for each other, believing in each other.

“I wish them the best in Pakistan and the World Cup, I am distraught not to be there, and will be watching on the TV when I can. I’ve really enjoyed my Test cricket, after Covid times, which I found tough.”

At a conservative estimate, he had spent less than 80 days in his own bed since the start of 2020, so the injury, Bairstow believes, allows some time to reflect, and take in that extraordinary summer, before returning stronger. With 89 caps in Tests, and 95 in ODIs, a century in each is drifting onto the horizon.

“I will probably write some bits down to digest and take in,” he says. “There are going to be some s--- days when I am missing playing again and you struggle to drag yourself to the gym when it’s cold, dark and miserable. I’m not a massive writer, but I make little notes. I’m not a massive talker about how I’m feeling, so it’s a coping mechanism, if you like."

It would be easy to assume Bairstow's injury would have cast a cloud over him, but it is reassuring to see him so upbeat – he is happy to pose for pictures in his protective boot, and shares snaps taken in his hospital bed, including one of him contemplating The Beano (an in-joke with his friends).

Rather than raging at the injustice of it all, Bairstow is philosophical. "It won’t sink in for a little while but I think you have to look at it [the injury] in a slightly different way," he says. "Yes, this has happened. I am out for a few months, but if that break allows you to play for an extra couple of years at the end, then that’s fantastic.

"My hunger has never diminished, but perhaps this will grow my appetite for the fantastic things we have next year, the Ashes, World Cup, and another T20 World Cup in 2024.”