Four-time County Championship-winning captain, Rory Burns is the beating heart of the club
A graduate of the Surrey Academy and Banstead CC, Burns joined the Surrey set up back in 1999 as an U9 and played all the way through the age group pathway. The left-hander first formed a strong opening partnership with Zafar Ansari and was a key presence throughout the summer of 2014, producing over 1,000 first-class runs and repaying the faith shown in him by the Club.
That level of form has continued throughout his career and, by the end of the 2018 season, he had passed the 1000-run mark in each of those five years. Having firmly established his position at the top of the order for Surrey, Burns replaced Gareth Batty as Club captain in the 2018 season. Burns took the responsibility in his stride, scoring 1,359 runs at an average of just under 65 as the County Championship trophy returned to the Kia Oval for the first time in 15 years. His brilliance with the bat also earned him his first England Test call-up.
After solid showings in Sri Lanka and West Indies, his maiden Test century came during the first Ashes Test of the 2019 summer. He doubled his Test century tally on the tour of New Zealand during the winter, and followed it up by reaching the three-figure-mark yet again against New Zealand at Lord’s in the summer of 2021. Till date, the opener has played 32 times for England.
For Surrey, the skipper he has scored more than 11,000 First-Class runs. Since the initial triumph in 2018, Burns has led Surrey to a hat-trick of titles from 2022-2024, scoring more than 1,000 runs in 2024 as he became the second most successful captain in the Club’s 180-year history outright. Only Stuart Surridge, with five, has won more County Championship titles for Surrey.
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