“Missed chances weigh on the mind and they dent your confidence no matter who you are.” Jack Russell knows how Jonny Bairstow must be feeling. Well, sort of. “I missed Brian Lara a couple of times in the Windies in 1994 which really stung but I was lucky enough not to miss one in the two Ashes series I played in.”

We’re on to our fourth cup of tea of the morning (decaf for him: “I sleep much better now”) at his studio space in Chipping Sodbury. Russell is leaning forward in his armchair, hovering over the custard creams with those mercury hands outstretched, lost in a memory.

“Although I did get a finger to a quarter chance, an inside edge – Neil Foster to Mark Taylor at Lord’s in ’93 – keeping at the Nursery End. I was fighting gravity up the slope!”

It comes as no surprise that Russell can recall a flicker of a moment from 30 years ago so vividly. Now approaching his 60th birthday, the hair and toothcomb ’tache are closer clipped these days but the finest keeper of his generation admits to a tingling in his fingertips ever since Australia landed a few weeks ago.

“The Ashes is very addictive for me. I don’t miss playing but right now I wouldn’t mind getting back out in the middle – they do that to you, the Aussies.”

Russell can even see a bit of himself in the current England men’s Test side, in their latest sartorial accessory at least. “Am I in fashion? I’ve been seeing moustaches, long hair at the back and now bucket hats! I wouldn’t qualify for Bazball, though, I could barely hit it off the square.”

Ben Stokes and company’s Spike Island headgear has inspired Russell to dig out his own. He famously wore the same sacred sunhat for the entirety of his 23-year playing career. He thumbs the tattered lump of cloth lovingly and points out the singed marks still visible after a near catastrophe during the tour of the West Indies in 1998. In an attempt to dry it quickly after a day’s exertions Russell put his hat in the oven only to get momentarily distracted. His roommate Angus Fraser recalled that when he pulled his beloved chapeau out he touched the top and it, “collapsed as though it was puff-pastry”. It nearly ended Russell’s tour, but salvation came in another repair job.

Jack Russell indulges in his favourite pastime at Georgetown in Guyana during the 1998 West Indies tour. Photograph: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Earnestness momentarily creeps into his West Country burr – “I have to know where it is at all times, otherwise I start to panic …” – before he gathers himself and grins. “It’s great to see the current lads have embraced it – long live the bucket hat!”

Russell’s stats show that he raised his game against the Old Enemy and he talks wistfully of his maiden Test ton, against Australia at Old Trafford in 1989. He chuckles at the memory of Dickie Bird’s exasperated attempts at diplomacy when he nearly came to blows with Merv Hughes.

But there’s one Ashes moment he says people send him on Twitter on a daily basis – the Venus flytrap stumping of Dean Jones when standing up to the pace of Gladstone Small at the Sydney Cricket Ground during the 1990-91 series. The razor reflexes and the celebratory jig after scattering the bails were peak Jack Russell.

The English wicketkeeping debate is rumbling once more after Bairstow’s rusty performance behind the stumps in the first Test at Edgbaston, where he dropped (or failed to go for) a handful of catches and missed a stumping. Does Russell see his cricketing craft, that of the specialist keeper, as one that is being diminished?

He’s thoughtful, making another cup of tea while he ponders his answer. “The debate’s still going on, isn’t it? It was going on well before me and Stewie [Alec Stewart] and now it’s Ben [Foakes] and Jonny.

Jack Russell in his trademark floppy hat is congratulated by teammates after memorably stumping Dean Jones during the 1990-91 third Ashes Test at the SCG. Photograph: Patrick Eagar/Popperfoto/Getty Images

“You know, this series might be decided by one stumping. One catch. One piece of brilliance, because there’s such fine margins between the sides. Jonny is made of tough stuff and I’m sure he’ll bounce back but in an Ashes series missed chances get magnified and so the pain will be even greater because of what is at stake.”

England are 1-0 down in the series and looking to pick themselves up off a different kind of canvas to the ones over Russell’s shoulder. Bairstow looks set to remain behind the stumps for the rest of summer, so what advice does Russell have for him?

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“It’s so tough but that’s the territory a wicketkeeper operates in. You have to give it everything you’ve got mentally to block missed chances from your mind and focus on the next ball. That’s easier said than done in the cauldron of an Ashes contest.”

Bairstow was much tighter on the final day in Birmingham – only his fourth first-class match with the gloves since recovering from a broken leg. “You have to give him credit for sticking in there and not wilting despite the disappointment he would have been suffering.”

Bairstow’s ability to bend a game to his will with the bat is not lost on Russell either: “Jonny at No 7 … we’re talking Gilchrist levels of destruction in terms of the damage he could do.”

A successful artist for more than 30 years, Russell’s unmistakable watercolours adorn the walls around us and easels lurk in the corner with a couple of current projects. He has been busier than ever, preparing for a landmark exhibition at the Chris Beetles gallery in London that opens on the eve of the Lord’s Test.

During the summer of 2019 Russell painted the first ball of the five men’s Ashes Tests as well as the women’s Test at Taunton. He describes the pieces as “the most enjoyable and challenging” of his career. Katherine Brunt’s delivery under the spires at Taunton has never been seen in public and neither has a picture he painted at Headingley of Stokes’s winning shot. “I had to do it didn’t I?”

Russell’s paintings from the first 2019 Ashes series – The first ball at Lord’s and Old Trafford.Russell’s paintings from the first 2019 Ashes series – Ben Stokes’ winning shot at Headingley and the first ball at Edgbaston.Russell’s paintings from the 2019 Ashes series (clockwise from top left) – the first ball at Lord’s, Old Trafford, Edgbaston and Ben Stokes’s winning shot at Headingley.

Tea drained and biscuits snaffled like a leg-side stumping, it’s time for Russell to get back to his paints, but not before some particularly apt parting words. “Cricket and art … you can never crack either. You can be bowled out for nothing, smashed for six or drop a catch – you’re always learning, there’s always something to improve.”

Jack Russell – 60 Years 60 Pictures: a Celebration runs at the Chris Beetles Gallery, Ryder Street, London from 27 June–29 July 2023