Rory Burns

Rory Joseph is a left-handed opening batsman who occasionally keeps the stumps. The southpaw had to wait too long for his Test turn and got his chance post Alastair Cook’s retirement, when England was struggling to find an opening duo in the longest format. 

Burns emerged to make his Test debut against Sri Lanka at Galle. Though the opener didn’t have a good start and could only manage to score 9 and 23 runs on debut. A couple of days later, he scored 43 and 59 in a gritty fashion to prove his worth. He backed it up with a subtle performance against West Indies and Ireland. It wasn’t until the first Test of the Ashes of 2019 when Burns stamped his class to announce himself. 

Burns didn’t become an overnight success as he had to go through a grind of seven years to achieve his dream of playing Test cricket. He made his first-class debut for Surrey in May 2011 at the age of 20 and played as a keeper-batsman. In the next season, he scored an exciting century against Middlesex and finished the season with 741 runs at an average of 49.4. The opener hasn’t dropped a beat ever since. He has crossed the 1000-run mark for his county for five successive seasons and been a prime member in the Surrey setup. In 2018, he led his county to its first Championship title since 2002. 

His domestic success led to his awaited national call-up during the Sri Lanka series in 2018. During the Ashes, Burns was England’s main man and finished the series as the third-highest run-getter. He scored 390 runs in his ten outings, including two fifties and a ton at Birmingham. Since then, Burns has scored runs in all conditions, against all oppositions, in all kinds of situations. 

In 2020, Burns was part of the Test squad to play against West Indies and Pakistan, post the lockdown. However, he has struggled since the Pakistan series. He made a comeback in the Indian series but was dropped after the first two Tests. 

Over the years, Burns has become a veteran in county cricket and is more than capable to re-establish himself in the English Test team. Although with competitors like Dom Sibley and Zak Crawley also in the English setup, Burns surely has a neck-to-neck fight for a berth. 

(As of March 2021)