Queensland’s Joe Burns opens up on missing Ashes selection
Queensland’s Joe Burns has opened up on missing Ashes selection and admits he felt sorry for the selectors as they decided the squad.
Cricket
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Joe Burns will never forget the feeling of peeping up at the clock and knowing he was ready for bed.
Had it been 10.30pm and he was on his sofa there would have been no issue.
The trouble was it was 12 hours earlier and he was standing in the middle of one of the world’s most famous cricket ground’s – Old Trafford.
“It was half an hour into day two of a game for Lancashire when I looked up at the scoreboard I thought, ‘I’m cooked’,’’ Burns said.
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“I was counting the overs to when I could get into bed that night. I just knew there was something was wrong but it is a hard environment to admit you have a problem.
“It was a pretty scary thing. I should have been having the time of my life playing for an Ashes tour.’’
Burns is back in Brisbane after being one of the last men cut from Ashes tour contention in a brutal selection process in which two Australian teams played each other in a trial.
The players were told their fate in an individual meeting with selection chairman Trevor Hohns.
One of the reasons he was edged out by Cameron Bancroft – despite scoring four centuries in his 16 Tests including a last start ton against Sri Lanka – was that he had to briefly return from an English county stint with Lancashire due to a fatigue-related illness which initially he did not detect.
“I was diagnosed with fatigue on the back of a virus I had in October.
“I got really sick for a week and from that point on I was tired and worn out all summer. I thought it was training. I would do a gym session and go home and sleep for 14 hours.
“Basically what happens is the immune system operates as if you are still sick because it never got a chance to settle. Your body just gets worn out.’’
Burns rose early on the morning he received news he was not part of the Ashes squad.
He went to the hotel buffet hours before he needed to and ate a substantial meal, whimsically thinking “my Last Supper?’’
Hohns might not have realised that as much as he felt sorry for Burns, the batsman actually had similar emotions for him.
“I actually felt sorry for the selectors it had to be done like that. On the day they were making some guys dreams they had to deliver bad news to other guys as well.
“You know the selectors are doing it as tough as you. There was a little bit of talk at the start and I said to Cracker, ‘mate, tell me if I am in because I am so nervous’. He said, ‘unfortunately you are not selected’.
“From where I had come from over the last few months I was just happy to be there to be honest.’’
The trial match tested many players and Burns was placed in a fielding position where his team hoped to dismiss his Queensland Bulls teammate Marnus Labuschagne.
“It was such a weird feeling because I had played with him for his whole career and every ball he had faced until then I wanted him to make runs and do well.
“I remember thinking, ‘it would absolutely break me if he hits me a catch and he has to walk off’.’’
What made it worse was that Labuschagne repeatedly looked at Burns in the field. Trying to do his professional job yet rattled by his empathy for an old mate scrambling to nail his heart’s desire, Burns would often avoid eye contact.
After missing the Ashes tour Burns went to Berlin and visited a one-time concentration camp before deciding it was not the place to uplift spirits after you have missed an Ashes tour so he went to Barcelona and sat on the beach, getting first Test updates via Twitter.
Then it was home to Australia for his eternal quest to return for a Test spot which never seems far away.
Originally published as Queensland’s Joe Burns opens up on missing Ashes selection
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