Jonny Bairstow © Getty Images
London: Yorkshire batsman Jonny Bairstow was voted player of the year by the Cricket Writers’ Club on Monday, while his county colleague Jack Leaning won the young player of the year award. Bairstow scooped the County Championship Cricketer of the Year award, topping the votes after scoring 1,108 runs in just nine games for the title winners. That helped him win an England Test recall during the Ashes, completing a hugely successful period for the 26-year-old. Opener Leaning, 21, picked up the young player of the year award, which went to Bairstow in 2011. He beat 18 other nominees having scored 922 championship runs in 15 appearances. Yorkshire also did the double at the ceremony last year, when Adam Lyth and Alex Lees were given the Championship and young player awards respectively.
Bairstow, who has been in and out of the England side, was recently called up to the Test squad during Ashes 2015 after his excellent performances for Yorkshire. He had said at the time “I am very pleased to have been called up. I’m pretty pleased with the form I’m in but it’s obviously going to be different challenges and expectations. It might be completely different next week – I might get no runs, I might get some runs – who knows. I’m really pleased to have scored the runs that I have and I’ll hopefully stay in that kind of form for the rest of the season, and longer…I’m disappointed for Gaz [Gary Ballance] who has had to drop out. But it’s something that’s quite exciting and I’m really looking forward to getting my teeth into.”