You know when you've hit a good shot. I use a bat that weighs two pounds and nine ounces, and it makes a reassuringly solid sound when I connect properly. The ball pings off the middle.

I've always tried to honour my dad and what he did for Yorkshire, which for him frequently meant putting the county's cause before his own. But my late boyhood, my early teens and my adolescence were full of net sessions and practice drills he never witnessed, ups and downs he never knew about and matches he never saw.

When my dad died, I was eight. Becky was seven. My mum had cancer, the first of two bouts that she's fought and beaten.

Jonny Bairstow Quotes