Burns eager to join London pilgrimage

Some 30,000 young Australians make the pilgrimage to London annually, moving to one of the world's busiest and best cities in pursuit of new horizons, experiences and career opportunities. Among them in 2015 will be Queensland batsman Joe Burns.

Not just another backpacker with an empty passport and a head full of dreams – none of them will face the decision to pack a Baggy Green or not – Burns is committed to a hectic two-month workload of cricket before jetting off to India with Australia A.

"Playing in England in different formats and then going to India for different formats, it's the whole spectrum of cricket really," Burns said.

"It's a great off season to gain experience across the board and hopefully come next season I'll be a more rounded cricketer and able to execute all the things I will learn over the next three or four months." 

Watch: Burns blasts fifty in SCG Test

It's a hectic off-season that the 25-year-old hopes will help transform him from a cricketer that was the last man cut from the Australian Test squad to one of the first names included.

Upon announcing the winter Test squads, and Burns' exclusion, National Selector Rod Marsh said he hoped the Australia A tour to India of two four-day matches and five one-day games would accelerate the right-hander's development.

"It's worked out quite nicely for Joe in a lot of ways," Marsh said last month, "in as much as he'll be going to India, where he's never played cricket.

"He'll have two four-day matches and five one-day matches in India and I reckon that will be very, very good for his overall development as a batsman."

For Burns, who hit two half-centuries in his last appearance in the Baggy Green, the focus is firmly on the here and now.

"You just concentrate on your next training session and your next game. If you're looking too far ahead it can make things more difficult," Burns said.

"For me, next season is a long time away. There's a lot of cricket to play, it's a little bit silly to bypass the opportunity of the next four months and not focus 100% on that.

"I havent' spent too much time living in London, I've visited a few times, it's one of the things I'm looking forward to, getting into that way of life.

"As a young person it's always a welcome change to have some travel and experience some different things in life."

His Middlesex engagement will be Burns' second stint on the county circuit after previously playing with Leicestershire. But he has never played at Lord's, the original home of cricket, with its instantly recognisable members pavilion and 'spaceship' media centre. Now he gets to call the ground home.

"I've only visited Lord's once to watch a game. It's going to be a great experience to play there, it's just another thing to tick off the list," he said. 

Watch: Burns guides Bulls home

Burns hit an unbeaten 135 in his last first-class innings, following on from a pair of half-centuries in the Sydney Test against India. It wasn't enough to maintain his place in the Australian team for the winter tours of the Caribbean and the UK.

Now he'll play seven first-class games and 11 Twenty20 matches for Middlesex, replacing Adam Voges as the club's overseas batsman – while the Western Australian takes his spot in the Australian Test squad.

The vagaries of the English county schedule mean, unlike Australia where the KFC T20 Big Bash League is blocked out, Middlesex's T20 matches will be mixed in with four-day games.

"It's one of the challenges of the modern game. This little stint exposes me to that more than anything else," Burns said.

"Games in England, you bounce between formats and different locations, different teams every day. It's one of the things you have to adjust to and one of the learning curves of playing in England."