Australia v Pakistan: Joe Burns’ Test comeback was inspired by his Ashes snubbing
He may have been dropped after scoring 180 but you can’t drop a player who makes 97 in his next Test innings. Australia has found its opening pair – by going back to a man who is no longer cricket’s Heartbreak Kid, writes ROBERT CRADDOCK.
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Before Joe Burns got the news he had missed the Ashes tour he rose early, went to the hotel buffet and deliberately ate up as if there was no tomorrow.
Then he got the bad news ... there would be no tomorrow.
Burns was nervous and smiled to himself that even though it was morning it might be his Last Supper so he might as well attack the buffet with the sort of zest normally reserved for lions attacking wounded buffalo.
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When you’ve been dropped five times from the Test team you half-expect to be feathered out in 50-50 calls so when Trevor Hohns gave him the bad news – heartbreaking though it was – he simply headed off to Spain and Germany for a holiday and swore to return a better player.
Maybe missing the Ashes tour will be a secret blessing for him. Two months of pain may be the price for long-term gain. He’s missed the series of the decade but will now finish the decade in style and in the team.
The joy for the cricketer who has been in an out of the team so often is that at last he is assured of his short term future.
Burns may have been dropped after scoring 180 but you can’t drop a player who returns then makes 97 in his next Test innings.
Burns trudged off the Gabba a shattered man after being bowled behind his legs by Yasir Shah but he is cricket’s Heartbreak Kid no more.
In a perverse sort of way when Burns under-edged the first ball he faced just shy of the keeper it just felt as if this could be his lucky day.
Burns and the suddenly-in-form David Warner added 222 for the first wicket at the Gabba, a stunning contrast to Australia’s last 10 opening stands of 2, 13, 11, 13, 12, 10, 1, 0, 5 and 18 and it was a sign of the respect Warner has for Burns that he dropped his head when his partner got out.
Australia has gone from bread and dripping to champagne and chocolates, admittedly against a team who, for all their promising threads, cannot weave the full Test match tapestry.
Yesterday Burns’ home audience saw the best of him – or at least flashes of it.
His fierce pull shots, audacious lofting of the spinners and a couple of smoking drives to the fast men were the sign of a batsman finding his Test match mojo.
He fell just three runs shy of what would have been his fifth century in 17 Tests. The list of players who finished their careers with five Test centuries includes many of Australia’s most underrated cricketers.
It features Bob Cowper who scored a triple century against England, Jack Fingleton who is famed for being a Bodyline warrior, Darren Lehmann who could have played twice as many of his 27 Tests and Chris Rogers, whose record is looking better each passing year as Australia plays musical openers trying to find a partner for Warner.
Burns is building up a solid Test record, no mean feat for a player who has had to endure some dreadful games such as the post-ball tampering Test in South Africa and the horrendous Hobart Test against South Africa which saw five players, including Burns, axed.
Cricket chemistry can be a weird, unexplainable force.
At first glance Warner and Burns don’t have much in common. One has spent his life in the headlines. The other seems to sail quietly beneath them.
One’s an instinctive leftie, the other a deep-thinking right-hander.
Watch them in the field and Warner can be prowling around with an electric edge while Burns stands quietly in the slips.
Yet they get along well with each other when they click it’s often in a big way.
The best ideas are often the simplest. When Australia was wondering who to choose as Warner’s opening partner they asked each other who he seems to be most comfortable with.
And the answer was the man least like himself.
GOOD: India playing a day-night Test at home in front of a sold out crowd in Kolkata. That sort of passion will ensure the five day game never dies.
BAD: Pakistan’s omission of Mr Pinpoint Mohammad Abbas, the seamer who averages 18 runs per Test wicket. That’s quite a big decision to leave out someone of that pedigree when the rest of the team is struggling to take a wicket between them.
UGLY: The nob-ball fiasco in cricket. It’s the sloppiest part of the game, full of grey areas, confusion and with no clear plan for the future.
Originally published as Australia v Pakistan: Joe Burns’ Test comeback was inspired by his Ashes snubbing