Ashes 2019: Battling Burns rewards England’s show of faith

England's Rory Burns plays a shot on the second day of the first Ashes cricket Test. Picture: Lindsey Parnaby/AFP

A Test match so far for the twitchy, the fidgety, the unorthodox and the idiosyncratic. No one in their right mind would put Rory Burns in the same league as Steve Smith, but as far as ignoring the coaching manual and defying accepted wisdom and the geometry of batting is concerned, they speak the same unusual language.

Burns matched Smith on Friday if not for style and certainty then for character and sheer bloody-mindedness, making his maiden hundred in his eighth Test, and a vital one at that.

They come ten-a-penny to Smith, these hundreds, but until on Friday a three-figure score at the highest level was something that existed in Burns’s dreams only. The opener came into this match with no form or confidence and on the back of a poor performance against Ireland at Lord’s last week, which would have left him wary about his place for the first Test, so this was a performance of real character and heart. From such situations are careers forged.

It was not always a convincing innings, and the 28-year-old Surrey captain played and missed frequently as Australia’s bowlers tried to restrict him from his favoured leg side, but Root has not kept faith with him for the beauty of his batting. Out of all the openers chosen recently by England, Root feels that Burns carries himself the best, combining the intensity and relaxation required of those chosen to succeed in this difficult task. With so little to choose between them, character is vital, and in the Caribbean and Sri Lanka last winter Root liked the cut of Burns’s jib.

Those two series in the winter provided contrasting challenges, neither straightforward, and on this mostly warm and sunny day and on a dry, second-day pitch offering no demons as far as the quicks were concerned, it could be argued that this presented Burns with his best opportunity for a big score, despite the top-class nature of Australia’s attack. An early scare came when his partner, Jason Roy, edged James Pattinson low to slip, but Roy was the only wicket of the morning to fall as Burns camped at Pat Cummins’s end with relative comfort.

After opening bursts from Cummins, not quite at his best, and Pattinson, Nathan Lyon was given an early look. When the offspinner’s first ball spun sharply to Root, it was clear how important England’s first innings and a lead would be, hence the determination with which those batsmen who got in approached their task. On his return to No 3, Root showed the way in this regard, playing an innings of great responsibility and care. Normally a batsman quickly into his stride, Root spent 57 balls making 11 by lunch. He had his determined head on.

He enjoyed, it must be said, one extraordinary moment of good fortune when he was beaten by Pattinson on nine, the ball passing the outside edge and glancing the off stump without dislodging the bail. The sound of ball on wood understandably encouraged umpire Joel Wilson to give Root out caught behind and it was only after Root had reviewed that replays showed that the unlikely had happened. In disbelief, Pattinson walked up to the stumps and lifted the bails off, weighed them as a butcher might his sausages, and then checked to make sure there was no glue holding them in place.

Wickets were hard to come by, just one apiece in the opening two sessions, but runs were dearly bought as well, the run rate dampened by some disciplined Australia bowling. Halfway through the day, a spectator dressed as the Queen strolled through the Hollies Stand to great amusement, holding a replica World Cup to taunt the travelling Australians, but this was a different type of cricket to the dismissive gung-ho batting from England that had dispatched Australia from that competition — and no less compelling for that.

On the eve of the Test, Tim Paine, the Australia captain, laid out his team’s strategy in his newspaper column. “Humility”, “discipline” and “patience” were the keys words, which sounded less ambitious in tone than those that might have been used by the team’s mentor, Steve Waugh, during the years of dominance. Still, times change and needs must, and Australia’s record here, winless in 18 years, has clearly caused some introspection, and if the bowlers extracted less movement than England’s on the first day, they were a notch more accurate overall. Peter Siddle led the way in that regard and his discipline was rewarded eventually with a one-handed return catch from Root six overs before tea.

Burns’s previous highest Test score was 84 and he went to tea two shy of that mark, and then spent the next session combining his own ambition with the need to chisel out a first- innings lead for his team. He had fought through some tricky patches during the day: Cummins skimmed a bouncer off his helmet in the morning; Lyon might have had him leg-before on 21, forward but playing the wrong line, but perhaps the stickiest period came after Australia managed to change the ball just after tea, after numerous requests to the umpires.

The change, whether psychological or not, worked wonders, given that Joe Denly and Jos Buttler were dismissed within the next five overs, Denly trapped in front by Pattinson and Buttler well taken at slip by Cameron Bancroft off Cummins. Burns then spent 37 minutes marooned on 92, the ball passing the bat as frequently as he made contact with it. This was Australia’s most threatening passage of play and the crowd were reassured to see Ben Stokes walking to the crease at this point. They gave him what can only be called a World Cup winner’s welcome.

A tickle to the fine-leg fence off Cummins broke the deadlock and took Burns to within a sniff of his hundred. Eight, nine, 10 balls he waited on 99 and eventually the moment came with a push to wide mid-on off Lyon and a sprinted single that beat a direct hit. Burns knew he had made his ground and celebrated along with the Edgbaston crowd, even as the third umpire was checking for the run-out. It would have been quite an anticlimax had he misjudged but thankfully the celebrations were not rudely interrupted. To a man, the Australians applauded and perhaps they recognised the battler within.

A weight was lifted from his shoulders then, while Stokes began his innings with real authority. The key to Burns’s day was the way he negotiated Lyon after looking uncertain against him initially. More to the leg stump to take lbw from the equation, he looked far more comfortable as the day wore on and there was intelligence in the way he adapted his method.

In the final hour, Matthew Wade was called upon to bowl some filth. Australia took the second new ball. A review was wasted then against Burns, as Pattinson came on for his final spell of the day. England ended within touching distance of Australia’s first-innings total and will want a decent-sized lead as Lyon is unlikely to go wicketless in the second innings, as he was on the second day. Burns, unbeaten and unbowed, walked from the field with the ground rising to him and chanting his name. What a feeling.

The Times