Why value of self-taught scrapper Burns is far higher than his average

england’s pragmatic opener sets the tone with tough runs at the start of a series but this key role tends to get overlooked

There are batsmen who make lots of runs and boast an average to match, and there are batsmen – nothing fancy – who make runs when they matter most, like Rory Burns.

Burns goes into the second Test at Old Trafford as England’s most senior specialist batsman after Joe Root, even though he made his Test debut less than two years ago; and his finest feature is that he scores tough runs at the start of a Test series, when England have been at their most feeble.

His Test debut, in Galle, was unremarkable, but English opening batsmen are seldom renowned for their expertise on turning pitches. Burns, however, settled rapidly in Sri Lanka, and scored 54 runs per 100 balls – more than three runs per over – by implementing the team tactic of sweeping and reverse-sweeping Sri Lanka’s three spinners to perdition.

Subsequently, Burns has set the tone in the opening match of England’s last five series. It is little fault of his that they have lost all five because he has scored 133 against Australia, 80s in the West Indies and South Africa, a fifty in New Zealand, then 30 and 42 in the first Test of this series at Southampton. He has seized the standard – though a junior centurion

– and led the charge.

Opening batsmen who set the tone of a series have traditionally been undervalued, except by their team-mates. Previews focus on the big names, the star all-rounders, the fast bowlers … but so often it is the unglamorous opener, pitching his tent on day one, who defines the series for his side.

Like Kraigg Brathwaite, who inspired West Indies with the confidence they could win after dismissing England for 204, by scoring 65

Unglamorous work: Rory Burns on his way to 42 in the second innings of the first Test until he was given lbw in one of the many poor decisions which afflicted the tourists in the first half of the game, but which almost evened themselves out by the end.

Of his many eminent predecessors as an England opening batsman, Burns resembles none so much as Sir Andrew Strauss. It cannot be a coincidence that both played rugby until their late teens as scrum or fly-halves. Their style is pragmatic, that of a scrapper; they absorb the bouncers because they are used to being kicked; they are not worried about their leading elbow in the off-drive so long as they make tough runs.

Indeed, they seldom play the off-drive, instead briskly clipping anything on their legs, and giving it the kitchen sink when the ball is short and wide. In the process, they reassure team-mates who follow that the bowling is hittable.

In his last four series, following his debut in Sri Lanka, Burns has been first to show the opposition to be mortal. After England had been blasted away for 77 in Bridgetown, his 84 got them into the series (nobody else passed 34 in the game). He had pulled, or rather swept, his weight in Sri Lanka and now his idiosyncratic technique had succeeded against West Indian pace: this fellow had an all-round game, even though he had never been an England Lion or gone on one of their tours, or maybe because of it. Burns learnt for himself instead.

A critical, and typical, moment was when he left Whitgift School, effectively Surrey’s academy, where he had to bat at No9 and keep wicket. He was opening the batting for his club Banstead, and moved to City of London Freemen’s so he could keep doing so. He had one year, not three, at Cardiff University, again identifying what was best for his game, then five seasons of scoring 1,000 first-class runs for Surrey – nothing fancy at the Loughborough academy – before England finally realised. So an autodidact, and just as well in a side of so many unproven batsmen, because he has had no top-order colleague from whom to learn.

His 133 against Australia at Edgbaston would have been a matchwinner if James Anderson had not broken down and Steve Smith had not made two centuries. In the previous Test, the one-off against Ireland, Burns had been all over the place but he found the answer with the aid of Neil Stewart, his childhood coach. He can still get too chest-on against a right-arm bowler over the wicket, as a result of compensating for his left-eye dominance, yet he carries on scrapping.

It was his 84 at Centurion that restored England’s confidence last winter when they had been going down like ninepins with a virus. That teed England up to win the series, even though Root’s tackle in the football warmup at Cape Town put him out of the last three Tests.

Burns’s Test average is 33.9, but his value to the team has been much higher.

Of his many eminent predecessors, Burns resembles none so much as Sir Andrew Strauss