NICK FRIEND AT LORD'S: Despite failing to make a conclusive impression on his first two England tours, Burns provided a solidity atop England’s order and an assured competence that has more than earned him his extended opportunity
“Bleached blonde hair and a massive head is how I remember him and quite an impressive stroke-player – he hasn’t changed much since really,” laughed Rory Burns as he recalled his earliest impressions of Jason Roy.
The pair have known each other since they were 10-year-olds, first as teammates in the Surrey age-group system, while also opening the batting together fleetingly during their time at Whitgift School.
On Wednesday, the pair will walk out to the middle together at Lord’s as England’s latest pair of opening batsmen. It will be Burns’ seventh Test, though his first on home soil.
There were solid starts in both Sri Lanka and West Indies during an encouraging winter on a personal level, but a hundred in the game’s loftiest format has so far eluded the Surrey skipper.
Roy, on the other hand, will walk out alongside his county captain as a Test player for the first time; of England’s World Cup squad, only he and Jofra Archer have never won a Test cap. In all likelihood, that anomaly will change before the summer is out for both men.
Given a perfectly respectable first-class average of 38.38, it seems a surprise on one level that he has never been offered this transitional opportunity before now. However, an opener in one-day cricket more than against the red ball, it has only been in recent times that a thrillingly watchable technique has matched up to a similar weight of runs on the international stage.
His time is now – the consequence of an extraordinary World Cup, during which he plundered 443 runs in seven innings. If his 153 against Bangladesh was a swashbuckling hors d'oeuvre, his semi-final takedown of Australia came with a brutal fearlessness that had Australia's band of quick men ducking for cover. It was an irrepressible calling card.
“I think you’d be hard-pushed to find one,” Burns said of whether Roy was the most naturally talented teammate he had ever had.
“Even just growing up as a kid, you saw Jason hit the ball and strike the ball and he’d do things that other kids couldn’t do.
“I think what you’ve seen over the last couple of years is him rein that in slightly, understand his game a little bit more and piece it together. Hopefully he keeps doing that and hopefully he can translate his white-ball form to red-ball form.
“He probably has to tame [his white-ball instincts] slightly, but if Jason goes out and plays the way he does and makes good decisions, we have seen over particularly the last year and a half or two years what a wonderful player he is.”
Rory Burns has averaged 25 in his first six Tests, while the pair won las tyear's County Championship
The same, of course, is true of Burns, whose first-class debut came a year after Roy had made his Surrey bow.
Despite failing to make a conclusive impression on his first two England tours, Burns provided a solidity atop England’s order and an assured competence that has more than earned him his extended opportunity. It is hard to see him not beginning the upcoming Ashes series as England’s man in possession.
A serial run-getter in Championship cricket for a number of years even before captaining Surrey to glory in 2018, he was long earmarked for a position filled by so many – with little success – since the retirement of Andrew Strauss in 2012.
“I didn’t set the world alight from a personal perspective, but two places that I hadn’t been before and, obviously, Test cricket was a different beast, so I thought it went okay,” Burns assessed of his start to Test cricket.
By his own admission, there could – and, perhaps, should – have been a maiden ton in the Caribbean, only for the left-hander to fall victim to an innocuous delivery from the off-spin of Roston Chase while just 16 runs short of the milestone.
“I felt comfortable in the environment, I felt comfortable with what I got put up against. I just didn’t quite cash in and get the scores I personally would have liked.”
“Like most of the guys coming in amongst it, you have to try and cement your place in the side. Without scoring the runs, I haven’t done that yet. That is probably my next challenge from a personal standpoint.
“Test cricket is a different animal at times. When you get a start, you probably have to push on and make it count. I don’t think the Sri Lanka series really lent itself to batsmen or the West Indies really. I felt comfortable, but I just didn’t really get those runs.”
For Burns, there is an added meaning that comes with his first home Test; the grandson of an Irishman, his first name come with Irish roots.
“I always keep an eye on the Irish boys and how they’re going,” he explained. “It’s a great occasion for them and cricket and to play at home Test at Lord’s is a really good thing.”
On Tim Murtagh, a former Surrey player who has since become a modern-day hero at Middlesex, Burns confesses that he is wary of one of county cricket’s most highly respected stalwarts.
“It’s his home turf, isn’t it?” he chuckled. “He might have an Ireland shirt on, but it’s his ground.
“He’s a wily bowler, isn’t he? He’s always there, stump to stump, asking questions. With the red ball, you’re always going to be in business.”
The pitch is green - an Irish green, you might say. As an opening batsman in those conditions, Burns - and Roy - will have Murtagh to get past.
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Posted by Marc Evans on 24/07/2019 at 00:52
Burns as a teammate of Roy's and the encumbent of his aspiring position in the test team, is surely in a uniquely privelidged position to judge Roy's potential. Most of the criticism of his selection seems to come from anti white ballers, who see this as undermining the county championship as a breeding ground for test cricket. I have some sympathy with this but where are the county openers pushing for a test place? As most ex players I've heard, including the likes of Atherton, seem to be up to giving Roy's undoubted talent a chance to adapt to the new challenge, I'm happy to go along with them.