BURNS: I’LL BOUNCE BACK
Opener has seven Championship games to convince England he deserves a recall
Rory Burns is planning to make an unanswerable case to England’s selectors after he was dropped from the Test side in India.
The 58 runs he managed in the two Chennai Tests in February proved the sum total of his winter’s work after paternity leave prevented him from taking part in the series in sri Lanka.
With Dom sibley and Zak Crawley opening in the final two games in India, Burns has set his sights on a hatful of runs in the seven County Championship matches for surrey that precede the first Test against new Zealand at Lord’s from June 2 — starting next week in Bristol against Gloucestershire.
‘The way those Tests were going, you could have left out any of the batters at various points,’ he said. ‘Conditions were loaded in India’s favour, which is their prerogative. But it wasn’t conducive for opening the batting in terms of the way we see it in this country.
‘It was a tough tour. no one really found it easy. All I want to do as a player and person is keep on improving. I had an honest conversation with Joe root and Chris silverwood and got feedback on certain areas.
‘I’ve got seven games and a few things I want to work on, but there’s also a great opportunity for me to go out and score some runs for surrey.’
Having picked him for 23 Tests since november 2018, and with a view to taking an experienced side to Australia this winter, England still regard Burns as a long-term prospect.
And the 30-year-old’s chances of a recall were not harmed by the struggles in Asia of sibley and Crawley, as they managed just three half- centuries between them in 20 innings in sri Lanka and India.
Another potential factor is the final of the IPL on May 30. If rajasthan royals qualify, for example, that could rule Ben stokes and Jos Buttler out of the first new Zealand Test, making Burns’s re- selection look even more straightforward.
‘I think there’s a bit of credit in the bank in terms of what I’ve done,’ he said. ‘But quite frankly it’s more about what’s going on between my ears.’
one matter he regards as old news is his Twitter spat in February with former England women’s international Alex Hartley, who jokingly thanked the men’s Test team for getting their 10-wicket defeat by India at Ahmedabad out of the way in two days, so attention could switch to the women’s side in new Zealand.
Both she and Burns, who tweeted that Hartley’s comment was ‘very disappointing’, were spoken to by the ECB and Burns said yesterday: ‘It’s all been dealt with and sewn up, so that’s it.
‘Everyone knows the pros and cons of social media and I don’t want to elaborate any further.’
Meanwhile, surrey and England team-mate ollie Pope believes he will not be troubled any further by his left shoulder, despite the batsman twice requiring surgery on a dislocation.
‘I was diving around in India without thinking about it, so it should not pop out of position again. Hopefully there will be no more surgeries,’ he said.
Pope remains in the running for the new Zealand Test series despite averaging just 19 in India.
He added: ‘ The winter was pretty tough, as it was for a lot of us batters out there, but I learned a lot of good lessons — not just for playing in India but for playing on day-four and day-five wickets.’