Captain immersed in challenge of firing county to rare heights, with England days long behind him
Vithushan Ehantharajah16-Mar-2025Does Rory Burns feel old? The laugh in response to the question suggests he probably does. Not because he turns 35 in August, but more the fact 2025 will be Burns’ benefit season.At Surrey, the decision to award benefit years to celebrate a player’s service is not taken lightly. Two members independent of the club management must write in to formally request one for a player, before that request is subsequently approved at board and general counsel level. That being said, commemorating an academy product who debuted in 2011 and is currently plotting a fifth County Championship as captain, feels like a no-brainer.”It’s something that I’m delighted to be awarded with,” Burns tells ESPNcricinfo. “I’d say it’s certainly making me level up my admin game, which, if you ask anyone that knows me, is fairly poor what with the dinners, golf days and matches.”Those that watch Burns operate will have a different take on his logistical skills. The batting, for instance, requires a great deal of organisation. The twitch of arms, canting of head and trigger-shift of feet are idiosyncrasies that require order to function effectively, which they did for 1,073 runs at 53.65 last term. It was the eighth time in the last 11 summers the left-handed opener’s first-class haul has breached four figures. And, really, how much of a scatterbrain can someone really be if they have marshalled a hat-trick of successive Division One titles?Indeed, as thoughts turn to going four in a row this summer, the computing wheels of Burns the cricketer are clearly in good order. Certainly, when it comes to history and ambition.”It is as cold now as it was when I lifted that trophy in September,” he recalls. “Big coats and beanies.Burns was a reassuring presence at the top of England’s order for much of his 32-cap tenure•Getty Images”In the immediate moment, with the trophy lift, you take stock of what you achieved and know you’ve done something pretty special,” referencing the fact Surrey became the first team since Yorkshire, 56 years ago, to win three back-to-back.”But then you look at Yorkshire; they won eight out of 10 (through the 1930s and after the Second World War). Or when we went seven in a row (1952-58). I think if you get the chance to go four in four, you want your next piece of history, I suppose.”Pursuit of another Championship – Surrey’s 34th – comes with change in the air at the Kia Oval. Alec Stewart is no longer director of cricket, but remains in a part-time high-performance cricket advisor role. New Zealand’s impressive bowling allrounder Nathan Smith will join the squad from May, while tall quick Matthew Fisher has moved down south from Yorkshire. Yet again, it is hard to look beyond the south London strutters as favourites.That Burns can be so open about chasing history speaks to what many at Surrey have known about him. He was always destined to lead, in part because of a level personality that seems to allow him the knack of compartmentalising his game and responsibilities.A diligent notetaker, he would constantly be scribbling in a pad during his early years, particularly when it came to details on opposition bowlers. When he was appointed Surrey captain at the end of 2017, it happened to coincide with a book he had on the go – “The Obstacle Is The Way” by Ryan Holiday, which Burns describes as “stoic philosophy”.During his time with England, he undertook a sports leadership and directorship course at the University of Liverpool, via a link-up between the Team England Player Partnership and football’s League Managers Association. He passed with distinction.”You have to write an essay on yourself at certain points – of how you see your leadership and what’s important to you. And realistically, the most important thing that comes across about leadership I think I’ve learned is you’ve got to be yourself.”I place an emphasis on the team and basically how I can do my bit – by leading from the front in my way. As an opening batter, I was focussing on that before captaincy, and I’ve tried to keep doing that. Because I suppose in leadership, when you’re looking for the first thing to do, it’s, the easiest thing to do is making sure you get your bit right. Being yourself.”Taking those learnings and applying them to what is to come in 2025 casts minds back to a time when Burns’ priorities were split between club and country. Surrey’s push for greatness runs parallel with a seismic year for England’s Test side, with an India series this summer followed by an Ashes tour. It is a carbon copy of the schedule from 2021 into the start of 2022. Those happened to be Burns’ last engagements as a Test cricketer.Out of context, Burns’ international record is modest; three centuries and 11 fifties across 59 innings, with a 30.32 average. But for most of his 32 caps, the first coming at the start of the 2018 winter in the immediate aftermath of Alastair Cook’s retirement, he was something of a banker. A rare point of a reliability in an inconsistent era.From Burns’ debut to the beginning of Brendon McCullum’s and Ben Stokes’ leadership at the start of the 2022 summer, England won just 17 of 44 Tests played, with 18 defeats. When opening batters were first on the block when things went wrong, Burns carried a degree of stoicism, to the point of being ear-marked as a future England captain.Burns endured a harrowing experience in Australia in 2021-22, and hasn’t featured for England since•Getty ImagesHe would eventually become part of that collateral. As ever, the final throes were the toughest. A dispiriting Ashes for all involved, a 4-0 loss exacerbated by Covid-19, began with Burns bowled leg stump by Mitchell Starc with the first delivery of the series. He was dropped after the first two Tests, then back for the last in Hobart, on hand to see Australia confirm a 4-0 shellacking, before missing out for the pre-Bazball tour of the Caribbean – Joe Root’s last as Test captain.Dropping straight back into the Kia Oval to plot the first of those hat-trick of titles helped ease the angst. Three years on, however, Burns has still not quite come to terms with his England career.”I don’t think I’ve actually fully taken stock of it,” he says. “I was so fortunate to keep jumping back in with Surrey and captaincy, I never had to overthink it. Where it had gone, where it had not gone.”It led me to some technical changes during that period. Thinking about it now, if I was exposed at a younger age to different conditions, some Lions stuff when I was growing up and scoring a lot of runs, would I have changed my technique rather than just churning out a load of runs in county cricket and got in that way? Would that have helped? I think I’m a better batter now than I was when I was playing Test cricket. But I’m going to think that because I’ve made some changes, and I’ve seen that they’ve worked.”The disappointing thing is it ended with just a 30-second phone call telling you that you’re back-up go on the tour to the West Indies instead of taking you. That was probably one thing that hurt the most. It wasn’t the last dropping (in Australia).”Related
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The Test team have since moved in an altogether different direction. The days of grinding your way into the XI off domestic performances, as Burns had done, are long gone, with McCullum and Stokes, governed by men’s managing director Rob Key, keener on raw talent rather than seasoned pros, and high ceilings over high domestic output.As far as Test cricket is concerned, the success rate of this policy has actually been pretty good, with Burns’ Surrey teammates Jamie Smith and Gus Atkinson among the players who have settled into the squad with instant results. But his measured take from his own experiences at the sharp end of the world game is that experience is a vital crutch to lean upon when the going gets tough.”I think when you’re just trying to cherry-pick or find another bolter, it might work and they might have good series. But in the long run, I think the churn of your players in your team will probably become more and more, and it’ll be less settled as it goes on. That’s just my opinion, and the guys in charge are making the decisions that they think are right.”Tom Banton’s a great example. I know it was white-ball, but how he got there (England) was, domestically, doing his thing, improving. Because he’s had that, he’s got more resilience about him and he understands his game that bit more. He also understands the ebbs or flows of when things don’t go right.”In terms of international cricket, it’s pretty tough up there. You need players who have somewhere to go when it doesn’t go right. And for that I think it helps massively to have those experiences first, before you can go and fly at international level.”Burns makes clear he would never say no to a recall, but acknowledges his nuggety, 50-strike-rate ways are not getting a look-in: “The profile of player they’re looking for probably isn’t, well… it isn’t my profile at the minute!”It is not time or distance that underpins Burns’ phlegmatic outlook, rather comfort given the situation he finds himself in at this stage of his career. Purpose and hunger undimmed, another legacy-enhancing summer awaits for Surrey and one of a storied county’s most revered leaders.