By Matt Hardy
Former England Test opener Rory Burns says his burning desire is to ensure Surrey win back-to-back County Championships rather than finding his way into the England squad for the Ashes.
Burns has not played for England in the Ben Stokes-Brendon McCullum era having last walked out onto the crease in the fifth Ashes Test in January 2022.
That series was lost by four matches to zero, another humiliation on Australian soil. Since the introduction of New Zealander McCullum as head coach and Stokes as captain, however, England are yet to lose a series.
Burns’ burning Surrey desire
But for Burns, who scored a combined total of just 77 runs in the six innings he played in, domestic success with Surrey at the Oval is the priority having had a full winter away from cricket for the first time in a number of years.
“I walk in every morning down there [at the Oval] and I walk past the winning teams [from past years] and every time I look at it, I just want to stick another one up on the wall. That’s my burning desire,” Burns told City A.M.
“There’s been a lack of sleep generally as [baby] No2 has arrived at home so there’s basically been a mixing of daddy duties and training – I’m trying to get in a decent headspace for that.
“It’s good, to be honest. I feel like it’s nice to have had a block for me to have a bit of downtime and not be playing to try and build on and improve my game and make some changes to that.”
Surrey won their first County Championship title since 2018 last year when they finished 25 points clear of second-placed Lancashire.
They open this year’s campaign away to the same rivals at Old Trafford on Thursday, looking to become the first team to win back-to-back titles since recently relegated Yorkshire did in 2014 and 2015.
“It’s one of the hardest things to do,” Burns, the league’s top run scorer when Surrey won the title in 2018, added. “Our challenge as a squad is coming out with the same intensity that we did last year, because that’s how we won our games and took teams out of the equation.
“So first of all, we have to try and maintain that standard. And then we’ve had guys off to various different places around the globe and it’s about coming back here and buying back into Surrey and our way of doing things and trying to build on the standards that you’re actually trying to maintain. Do I see it [that standard] there? Absolutely.”
Surrey’s close-season recruitment has been minimal, with Sean Abbott coming in for the retired Hashim Amla and a return for former England international Dom Sibley, who was at the club between 2013 and 2017. Tom Latham also joined the club yesterday.
“He’s another one that’s definitely come back home, he knows the surroundings,” 32-year-old Burns said of the returning Sibley.
“For him, It’s a little bit of a different squad that he’s walking back into but the way I’ve seen him go about his training – he’s been here all winter, and so have I – I think he can make a real positive impact.
“He’s pretty similar [to how he was in his first spell] to be honest, he’s a pretty consistent bloke and he’s fairly relaxed around the group. He does his thing, he works hard and puts it in so it’s exactly the type of group that we want.”
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