Ashes 2019: Watching Burns In Full Flow Was Just Like Cook In His Pomp

Derek Pringle studies and lauds the technique and confidence levels of a batsman who has been moulded into a top Test match opener

What a difference a week makes. This time seven days ago Rory Burns was batting in a six-foot deep trench of his own making against Ireland at Lord’s and going nowhere.

Now, here he is against Australia, at Edgbaston, looking every bit the opening bat and winding up his opponents as a result.

It has been some transformation, a real mind over batter. Where against Ireland and their phalanx of mostly sub-80 mph seamers he batted himself to a standstill, unable to even rotate the strike.

Here, though, the extra pace of the Aussies (all above 85mph) allowed him to nudge and deflect and keep both scoreboard and opponents ticking.

Part of the credit for Burns’ turnaround will go to Marcus Trescothick, with whom he has been working at Surrey. A tall left-hander, who stood still at the crease, Trescothick was asked to muck in and do some overtime with Burns after that Ireland game to get him functioning again.

One of the changes was to get Burns to keep his hands tight to his body and not to go searching for the ball. It worked, too, more or less, though it didn’t mean his innings was entirely edge-free, he wouldn’t be a left-hander if it was.

Few bowlers take kindly to being nudged down to the vacant third man boundary, especially Australians, so watching Burns, even after he’d passed fifty, exploit that vector (not always by design it has to be said), was to see three Aussie quicks forever on the simmer.

It is early days, but watching Burns amass (compile is too refined a word) 133 before eventually holing out to off-spinner Nathan Lyon, I was reminded of Sir Alastair Cook. An opener of long service in Tests, Cook and his long time partner Andrew Strauss, are the openers England struggled to replace.

Indeed, since Strauss’s retirement in 2013, England’s average opening stands against Australia has been 22.5. In this Test, with Jason Roy the latest opener to be tried it was 22.