Australia picking Joe Burns against India would be a show of faith, but it might end his form slump

As members of the unofficial Australian men’s cricket team selection panel, can we agree that in accumulating 1,379 Test runs at an average of 38.3 — including four centuries — Joe Burns has displayed a fair degree of class?

Can we also take for granted that in making just 62 first-class runs this season at an average of 6.88 — including scores of 4, 0, 0 and 1 for Australia A against India — Burns’s form is on the lamentable side of miserable?

So as the real Australian selectors ponder the Queenslander’s fate ahead of the first Test against India, we could well see an old adage tested in real time: is form really temporary and class permanent?

Such is the depth of Burns’s slump surely only faith in this proposition will prompt the…