Australian cricket icon Mark Taylor has highlighted what must change in Rory Burns‘ technique if the England opener is to retain his place in the visitors’ Ashes XI.
Burns had a dismal start to his Ashes campaign in the Brisbane Test, being castled by a leg-side Mitchell Starc thunderbolt on the first ball of the match and managing just 13 in England’s second dig.
The left-hander did a horrible job against Starc’s first ball, getting his footwork terribly wrong as the fast bowler destroyed the stumps behind his legs, giving him his fourth duck from his last nine Test innings.
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That led to Burns palming off first-delivery duties to Haseeb Hameed for England’s second dig. He had only begun at the non-striker’s end twice from his previous 54 Test innings, so his relinquishment of the first-ball duties appeared to be reflective of shattered confidence.
Burns’ woes have led to former Test captain Taylor making a grim assessment of the embattled tourist.
“Rory Burns is under massive pressure,” Taylor said on Wide World of Sports’ Outside The Rope.
“Because of that technique he is very susceptible to a moving ball. As we saw from Starc’s first ball of the match (in the Brisbane Test), if you get it straight and just doing a bit, when you’re shuffling across the crease and you’ve got the bat wrapped around your left ear, it’s not easy to get the full face of the bat on the ball. When the ball is moving you need the full face at your disposal.”
Burns last made a Test hundred in June, peeling off 132 runs from 297 balls against New Zealand at Lord’s.
The 31-year-old had also scored a century during the 2019 Ashes, compiling 133 from 312. That was the first of his three Test tons to date.
“He made a great hundred at Edgbaston in 2019, Rory Burns, he’s got great concentration power and he believes that he’s good enough – and that’s halfway there to being a good Test cricketer,” Taylor said.
“His technique is of major concern and he’s got to make runs in Adelaide, or they’re going to need to make a change.”