A stylish batsman who plays straight, plays late and has the patience to wait for balls in his area, Joe Burns has proven his worth as a Test match opener for Australia but has battled to bed down a permanent place despite playing in an era where Australia has been desperate for quality Test batsmen.

Burns burst on to the scene with 140 on Sheffield Shield debut against South Australia late in the 2010-11 season, the third highest score on debut by a Queensland player and he became a fixture in the Shield-winning state team the following summer. His Test debut came in the 2014-15 at No. 6 as a replacement for the injured Michael Clarke, but despite scoring a pair of fifties in his second game he was dropped for the tours of West Indies and England that followed.

Burns was confirmed as David Warner's new Test opening partner for Australia's 2015-16 home summer and scored three centuries in eight Tests. However, after only four failures on the 2016 tour of Sri Lanka he was dropped - a pattern that would continue over the coming years. He was recalled again in the wake of the sandpaper disaster in Cape Town and on limited preparation, having been flown in late following a victorious Shield final for Queensland, top-scored in the second innings in Johannesburg but was not selected for the next tour of the UAE. He was also overlooked for start of the 2018-19 the home summer but returned for the 2019 Sri Lanka series and made his fourth Test hundred in his 16th Test in Canberra.

With an Ashes spot within his grasp he suffered viral fatigue in mid-2019 which curtailed a stint with Lancashire and though he was part of the Australia A set-up in the UK he did not make the cut. But after a miserable Ashes for openers the selectors once again returned to Burns for the 2019-20 summer.

ESPNcricinfo staff