JONNY BAIRSTOW, World Cup winner. “It feels pretty good to be honest,” said the Yorkshire star ahead of England's return to Test cricket.

Bairstow, who briefly returned to Headingley to watch Yorkshire's Vitality Blast opener Nottinghamshire, is still basking in the glory of England’s stunning final victory over New Zealand at Lord’s.

“It’s not sunk in and won’t do for a little while,” he admitted. “We’re in camp preparing for the Ireland Test Match and then onto the Ashes, so it won’t do for a while.

“It’s been a long journey along the way.

“There’s been a few ups and plenty of downs, but it’s a fantastic moment which has taken a lot of hard work through a special bunch of people.

“It was a special moment in my life and a lot of other people’s lives.

“It’s something that when you sit in front of a fire and you’re 45 or however many years old with your mates or missus or with your kids you can enjoy those few moments.”

Bairstow enjoyed an excellent World Cup at the top of the order, topping 500 runs and scoring two centuries.

“It’s something you want to contribute in, a competition like that,” he said.

“There’s lots of speculation and talk around it. We know how high pressure it can be.

“I was really pleased to come up with two centuries within the comp and score the runs to contribute to us getting over the line.”

Bairstow has played in some huge games already in his career, most notably Ashes Tests. But how did the final against the Kiwis feel?

“I was probably more nervous for the semi-final,” he admitted.

“We’d obviously lost against Australia at Lord’s (in the group stages) before back-to-back wins to get us to the semi. Everyone wants to get to a final because then you’re in with a chance of winning it.

“The morning of the final, there were some nerves around. But that’s only natural.

“There was also a relaxed, excited atmosphere.

That’s been the thing throughout the comp and the last three years, the excitement of how we can push each other into improving our games and seeing what we’re about and where we can go.

“Eoin (Morgan) told us to take it all in and enjoy it because this is what we’ve worked hard for.”

The celebrations kicked off on the field with family, with Jonny’s mother Janet and sister Becky joining him.

“It’s what we’re about as a group and individuals,” he said.

“Your family are the ones who are there and have taken you from aged 10-11 all the way through to 17, 18 or 19 when you can drive. Even then, they’re still there to pick you up when you’ve been dropped and celebrate with you when you’ve won.

“To see the enjoyment that each and every person on that field and the backroom staff had - we’ve worked so hard over a long period of time - and to share it with family and friends and people all around the world was very special.”

Bairstow was a junior master of all sports in his days at St Peter’s School in York, including rugby union.

It is a sport he remains a huge fan of and is hoping that the World Cup win can have the same impact on others as England’s Rugby Union World Cup win in 2003 had on him.

“I hope so,” he said. “It was on Channel 4 and Sky, and I think that’s a huge factor.

“I look back to 2003 and the Rugby World Cup and how much of an inspiration those guys were who won that to myself and lot of other people who I grew up with - the role models they were to us wanting to carry on playing rugby.

“I would like to hope there’s a massive impact to what we’ve done.”

Bairstow’s comment about the World Cup victory not sinking in was partly due to the fact that a lot of the squad are back in action, with England’s Test summer kicking off against Ireland at Lord’s tomorrow. Then it’s the Ashes.

“We’ve got six Tests in seven and a half weeks, so it’s going to be gruelling,” he added.

“At the start of the summer, we had seven ODIs and went into the World Cup.

“It’s going to be tough because we know how Australia are going to react to it. But it’s going to be a lot of fun playing red ball cricket again.”