After a disappointing campaign in Sri Lanka, Australian opener Joe Burns is eager to get his form back on track for the upcoming home season. In what can be termed as a horrible tour for Burns, the opener struggled miserably in the two tests he featured in against Sri Lanka. The free stroke maker was all at sea against the Sri Lankan spinners, on pitches which turned square right from day one.
Burns was overlooked in the third test, and was replaced by Shaun Marsh, who scored a fluent century. Under pressure to regain his spot as David Warner’s opening partner, Burns has now turned to former Australian batsman Mike Hussey for guidance. On the sidelines of the series against India A, Burns said that he was delighted to work alongside Hussey.
“It’s a great learning environment with Mike Hussey as assistant coach,” Burns said in his chat with cricket.com.au. “Having ‘Huss’ there, I look at him as a mentor. I haven’t actually said that to him but I feel like we’re quite similar in how we go about the game. “As a group we’ve talked a lot in-depth about the challenges of going from domestic cricket to international cricket.”
“We’ve got a lot of young up-and-coming batters who haven’t played much international cricket, so we’ve been having some open discussions about the challenges, how to overcome them, some lessons that ‘Huss’ has picked up along the way, and a lot of information sharing amongst the group about what they want to do, where they want to improve,” Burns said. “It’s fantastic when a group of guys who have always played against each other come together in the same change room and share experiences, and Huss has really led that.”
Burns concluded by mentioning that training under Hussey was a valuable experience. “I just try and be as open as possible,” said Burns. “I feel like, while my international experience isn’t huge, I’ve got a lot of lessons and things I can pass on to those guys about coming into international cricket – what I found difficult and how I coped with different things. “And having Huss there, he’s been fantastic for me and that allows me to pass on as much information to the other guys as I can, and for me to learn off the other guys and their experiences as well.”