Stewart: Burns has mental strength to bounce back

ALEC STEWART has backed Rory Burns to put his Brisbane nightmare behind him in the second Ashes Test at Adelaide — and said his golden duck at the Gabba was down to nerves. Burns was bowled round his legs by Mitchell Starc’s first ball of the series, then caught behind off Pat Cummins in England’s second innings for only 13. And he dropped David Warner 48 runs into his 94. With the whole of Australia dissecting Burns’s idiosyncratic technique, Stewart, his director of cricket at Surrey, insisted England’s opener has the mental strength to handle the scrutiny going into this Test. ‘Listen, he’s had a bad Test match,’ said Stewart, who captained England in Australia in 1998-99. ‘He can’t hide behind that. I’ve exchanged messages with him since the Test. But he’s one of the most mentally strong, robust cricketers I know. ‘We’ve all had first-ballers. Yes, he was nervous. When you play Australia in Australia for the first time, the nerves are greater. And that’s why he got in a tangle with his foot movement with his first ball. But five or six Test matches ago he was player of the series against New Zealand.’ Speaking on the Inside the Tour podcast to help raise awareness for Prostate Cancer UK, Stewart added: ‘We’re always going to look at his technique when it doesn’t work because it is a pretty unique method. When it is in sync with how he is playing, at the point of contact when the bowler lets go of the ball, he is in a good position. When he’s slightly out of sync, obviously it looks horrendous. ‘I’m going to back him because I know how mentally strong he is. As Trevor Bayliss would say, you’re better off giving someone one Test too many rather than one Test too few. And Burns is the third-most senior batsman in that inexperienced line-up, behind Root and Stokes.’