England's Jonny Bairstow happy to be back for home summer amid career-ending thoughts

England keeper-batter Jonny Bairstow is set to return to the national side aftereight months following a horrific leg injury he suffered while playing golf in September last year. The ECB included him in the Test squad for the one-off game against Ireland ahead of the 2023 Ashes, starting June 1st at Lord's.

Bairstow, 33, missed a tremendous amount of cricketing action in the meantime, including England's 2022 T20 World Cup campaign, away Pakistan and New Zealand series, and IPL 2023 for Punjab Kings.

Upon returning to the field for Yorkshire in the second-division championship, Bairstow was among the runs and kept wickets - something he is happy doing for the rest of the summer. With Ireland and home Ashes ahead, Bairstow will have a dual role to play, and after almost recovering from the injury that threatened to end his career, Bairstow is happy to be back and hit the ground running.

Jonny admitted that he feared his career is over and that he won't be able to walk or even play cricket.

"You wonder whether or not you'll be able to walk again, jog again, run again, play cricket again," Bairstow said. "Absolutely, those things do go through your mind.

"It depends how long you think about them. There are many different things, until you get back to playing, well… you wonder, is it going to feel the same?" he added.

Jonny can't wait to keep wickets during home summer

While he admits being limping despite getting clearance from the medical team to go about his business, Bairstow said keeping shouldn't be a worry and having kept wickets for over 100 overs for Yorkshire, he is confident of pulling it off for six Tests ahead.

"I don't think it's different to fielding - when you're sprinting, changing direction," Bairstow said of keeping wicket. "You're squatting at the stumps and moving laterally, but you're not running at 25ks to the boundary. So, it's a different kind of fitness - the old legs and glutes are a bit stiff after that first day in the dirt, but it's part and parcel of it.

"That first second XI game (against Nottinghamshire before his return to 1st XI cricket), I kept 100 overs in the game. The last two Champo games - it's been building nicely. A day off, train, train, train. It's been back-to-back, and there hasn't been any reaction. If it swelled up, you know there's something wrong. So it's positive," Bairstow added, as quoted in ESPNcricinfo.

Having kept wickets in the past across formats, Bairstow is not new to this role and ahead of the all-important assignment in Ashes, he is happy to take care of the glove work behind the wickets.

"I'm excited. It's going to be a new challenge again because it is obviously something I've done quite a bit, but then there are periods when you don't do it as much because you're playing as a batter. Or playing white-ball cricket or whatever. It is an exciting challenge that awaits."

Meanwhile, as things stand, Bairstow will play for Yorkshire in the T20 Blast at Edgbaston this weekend and will rejoin the England squad ahead of Ireland Test.

WATCH WION LIVE HERE