THE GOOGLY: How England new boy Burns began on the road to the top

HUW TURBERVILL: Rory Burns was studying sports science and playing for the Cardiff MCCU team. His coach was the former Glamorgan batsman and 2nd XI captain, Kevin Lyons, also known to many as a first-class umpire. Lyons recalls the story...

^{Surrey's Rory Burns has won an England call-up}

Rory Burns is a happy man at the moment. He has led Surrey to their first County Championship since 2002, amassing 1,319 runs at 69.42 in the process, with four centuries. Next month he will be in Sri Lanka, after finally being called up by the England Test team.

It was interesting to hear how it could all have gone the other way, however, when Burns, 28, was a student in Wales.

He was studying sports science and playing for the Cardiff MCCU team. His coach was the former Glamorgan batsman and 2nd XI captain, Kevin Lyons, also known to many as a first-class umpire.

“I first met Rory in October 2009. I did some one-on-one coaching with him and he looked quite good,” Lyons, 71, told The Cricketer.

“He looked solid, balanced, played his shots, and had good application, although I did not rush to judgement because people can look good indoors.

“He was a quiet bloke but I could tell he was ambitious. He told me he had been batting at six or seven for Surrey 2nds. I told him I’d like to see him go in first. He was taken aback, but he said he would give it a go.

Burns played university cricket in Cardiff 

“He was not really getting anywhere with Surrey, and I advised him to do it the proper way, so he spoke to (then coaches) Chris Adams and Ian Salisbury and they said they would not object if he looked elsewhere.

“I drove him to Taunton as I was friendly with Brian Rose. Somerset liked the look of him, but Brian said he just needed to look at one more lad: a local boy, he’d come from King’s College, Taunton. His name was Jos Buttler…

“Rory opened the batting for Cardiff and to the very first ball of the season he played an attacking shot and was caught at cover. I gave him an hour to reflect and then went to talk to him, and he told me he would do the same thing again. I thought that was quite confident.

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“Somerset were interested in Rory and Andy Hurry told him to score some hundreds for us, which he did, three in the season – against Loughborough, Durham, and 234 against Oxford University in the Parks. I also recommended him three times to Glamorgan.

“Clive Radley picked him for the Combined Universities and he scored three hundreds for them. And at that point Surrey offered him a two-year deal.

“He is a great lad, and if I helped him at all, then I am delighted. I think he will go well this winter.”

Jack Leach was also in that Cardiff MCCU side, and they won 13 national university titles between 2007-2012, with Lyons as coach. Now he will be roaring Burns and Leach on in Sri Lanka.