Joe Burns, the Australian opener recently said that he is unsure about his stakes for selection against Shaun Marsh, as Usman Khawaja is likely to return, from a hamstring injury to the Test squad now.
Khawaja hammered a lovely century in his Big Bash League fixture for the Sydney Thunder on Sunday. He scored 109 off just 70 balls. After this innings, the selectors know that there are no indications of any kind of injury, which disallowed the player to miss the last two Test matches for the national side.
Khawaja is all set to return for the Boxing Day Test match against the West Indies at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. With Khawaja all set, Marsh and Burns will fight for the remaining spot in the team.
Burns said that there has been no contact from Rob Marsh, Australia’s Chairman of selectors about the plans for the Boxing Day Test match.
“No contact, everyone’s been busy with the Big Bash and their different franchises, it’s not until you all get together that you catch up again. I’m just focused on getting to each day, training as hard as I can with a view to making sure I’m ready to play.”
The national side will be training on Wednesday and that’s when the selectors will be taking further decisions.
Burns further told reporters, “It’s going to be a tough call, all the players will understand selection is part of the game… it’s not the end of the world.”
Burns has been the part of the Australian Test team for all the last four Tests this season following Chris Rogers’s retirement. He opened the batting with David Warner on all occasions. He got to his first Test hundred at Brisbane but hasn’t been impressive since then and didn’t score even a half-century after his maiden hundred.
He has criticised himself over his form and told the reporters about the importance of an opener to carry on his innings after getting a start.
“It’s been frustrating,” he said. “Because as an opening batter, the hardest thing to do is probably getting a start. To go on and waste it, to make some 30s and 40s – it doesn’t really count for much.”
“The satisfying thing is I am getting a start… but the frustrating part is that with those starts you should be making 50s at least and 100s ideally.”
It’s now in the hands of the selectors to take the final decision on Marsh and Burns, as Khawaja looks settled with his spot in the Test team now.
