Burns goes in to bat for team-mate

Surrey captain is confident county pal Jason can shine

RORY BURNS remembers meeting a boy at school in Surrey with ‘beach blond hair and a massive head’. Now he will open the batting for england with him in Test cricket at Lord’s tomorrow against Ireland.

‘he was also an aggressive stroke maker,’ said Burns yesterday of the boy in question, Jason Roy. ‘he hasn’t changed much. I’ve known Jason since he was 10, so to stride out in a Test with him will be cool. It’s going to be fun and exciting.’ The Whitgift School friends and Surrey team-mates will be opening together for the first time in professional cricket when they become the latest pairing to take on the poisoned chalice of facing the new red ball for england. Roy is the great unknown, the destructive white-ball batsman and World Cup hero who will be let loose on the longest form of the game tomorrow with very little first- class pedigree but with a proven big-match temperament and huge natural ability.

‘Jase probably has to tame his style slightly,’ admitted his county captain. ‘But if he plays the way he does and makes good decisions, then we’ve seen over the last couple of years, what a wonderful player he is.

‘I don’t think there’s any reason why he can’t translate his white-ball form into the red-ball game. I’d be hard-pushed to find another player I’ve played with as talented as him.

‘even growing up, you saw Jase strike the ball and do things other kids couldn’t. Over the last couple of years you’ve seen him rein it in, understand his game a bit more and piece it all together. hopefully he can keep on doing that.’

Burns, after six overseas Tests as Sir Alastair Cook’s replacement in Sri Lanka and West Indies last winter, has, if anything, more to prove than Roy. The pair will play in the first Ashes Test at edgbaston on August 1 but will be better placed to do so if they have a Test century apiece under their belts from this unique Lord’s occasion.

Burns, 28, has made two halfcenturies in his six Tests but averages just 25 and found some unusual

and soft ways of getting out, not least when on 84 and in sight of a maiden century in Barbados.

‘I haven’t set the world alight,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve done OK but Test cricket is a different beast. I felt comfortable. I just haven’t quite cashed in and got the scores I would have liked. Why haven’t I got a hundred? I missed one off Roston Chase (West Indies’ unlikely off- spinning hero) in Barbados! And I haven’t scored the runs to cement my place. That’s my next challenge.’

That begins against an Ireland attack led by ‘local boy’ Tim Murtagh of Middlesex, who knows Lord’s like the back of his hand and was yesterday seen almost licking his lips at a pitch that, two days out, was as green as the emerald isle.

‘he’s always there stump to stump asking questions and with the red ball he’s always going to be in business,’ said Burns of Murtagh. Burns then revealed he just might have been lining up in the opposing dressing room tomorrow.

‘I’m a quarter Irish (his paternal grandfather), so I always keep an eye on the Irish boys and how they’re going,’ said Burns. ‘I thought when Fordy (Ireland and former Surrey coach Graham Ford) took over I might get an approach, but there’s never been anything formal.’