AN EMPHATIC “yes” is Jonny Bairstow’s answer to whether or not he wants to don the gloves for England – the conundrum that has seemingly hung over him throughout his career.

With a breadth of wicketkeeping talent at the disposal of Trevor Bayliss and the selectors, it was perhaps thought Bairstow would be best served refining his batting rather than trying to master two art forms.

He certainly looks to be enjoying a purple patch in front of the stumps, combining two huge County Championship scores for Yorkshire – 246 and 196 – with a knock of 140 to help England to an emphatic victory over Sri Lanka at Headingley in the opener of the three-Test series.

That victory also saw him take nine catches before a first innings score of 48 and a further seven snaffles saw Bairstow help England to a 2-0 lead against Sri Lanka.

And the Yorkshire star says he has put in the hard yards for far too long to compromise.

“I wouldn’t have worked so hard for so long if I didn’t want the gloves,” said Bairstow.

“There’s a lot of pain and energy that goes into working so hard on that skill, so whether or not I want to be keeping wicket is something that needs to be written off.

“I have done it for Yorkshire for six years and now is the time for people to stop asking me if I want to keep wicket. I wouldn’t have done it for so long if I didn’t want to do it.

“Everyone is still looking to prove everything. Whether you have played one game or 125 games you are still looking to make statements to prove things.

“I’m pleased with the way things have started, but it’s a long season ahead.”

Bairstow has helped back-to-back County Champions Yorkshire reach the top of the table and his next task is laying down a marker in the Royal London One-Day Cup.

The Vikings kick-off their campaign against Worcestershire on home turf on Tuesday, with the competition as a whole kicking tomorrow.

They are set to take on Derbyshire, Northamptonshire and Lancashire before the end of the month, followed by matches with Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, 2014 winners Durham before concluding against Warwickshire.

The top four teams in each group will reach the quarter-final stage, with the ultimate goal a place in the final at Lord’s on September 17.

Bairstow, 26, believes it’s hard to pick a winner sees no reason why Yorkshire cannot be among the front-runners.

“There are a lot of very strong teams, it’s an open competition, literally anyone could win,” he added.

“I’m pretty sure at the start of last season not many people would have said Gloucestershire would win it but everyone can beat everyone in this competition on your day.

“That’s what makes it exciting, you have got to be on your game all the way through the competition and when it comes to those latter stages it’s knockout competition if you’re off for an hour or even a couple of overs you can get knocked out of that competition.

“It was a good stepping stone last year to get to the semis and then we didn’t play our best cricket in that semi-final.

“They were deserved winners Gloucestershire and they’ll be challenging again but I don’t see why we can’t go one step further this year.”

As proud sponsors of the One Day Cup, Royal London is giving away match tickets to see the action live. Visit royallondoncricket.com to enter