Mature Burnham makes the first mark of many

Durham 543 for 7 (Burnham 135, Borthwick 77, Collingwood 75*, Richardson 68) lead Surrey 457 by 86 runs
Scorecard

At the age of 19 years and 106 days, it's a bit early in his career to say that Jack Burnham has seen it all, but the confidence that he has gleaned from his eight first-class matches to date is more than enough for him to know when he's onto a good thing.

Burnham's maiden first-class century, a resolute and barely ruffled innings of 135, with 18 fours and two sixes spread across 215 balls and nearly four-and-a-half hours of precocious application, served to neutralise Surrey's ambitions in a contest that, barring a shocking turn of events, is now destined to be a draw.

But it was the confidence with which he assessed the conditions, on his very first visit to England's oldest Test ground, that augurs so formidably well for his future. With a dominant range of strokes that rarely over-reached themselves but always ensured that the bowlers were playing to his tune, his innings provided the bedrock for Durham's close-of-play total of 543 for 7.

With a lead of 86, and with Paul Collingwood unbeaten overnight on 75, there's the outside prospect of a fighting finish if Surrey - who could be lacking the services of Zafar Ansari after he was sent to hospital for a scan on another worrying hand injury - run into Chris Rushworth and Graham Onions in one of their new-ball moods.

Realistically, however, the story of this match has already been written by a teenage batsman with an impressive recent past and a very big future. Burnham arrived back in England in March after an outstanding performance at the Under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh, where he racked up three centuries and 418 runs - and in so doing broke a tournament record previously held by a certain Alastair Cook.

He's since been trusted to take that form straight into Championship cricket, and with 234 runs in four innings to date, including 61 against Middlesex at Chester-le-Street last week, he's paying back that faith with interest already.

"I'm very confident at the minute," said Burnham at the close. "The lads have so much faith in me so I go out to bat relaxed and I believe in myself, and it works. I'm taking it all step by step, I'm just hoping to do as well as I can for Durham, but my main ambition is to play for the main England side in years to come."

To judge by his career trajectory so far, it's hard to imagine how Burnham could possibly miss that particular mark. A quick glance at his player page on ESPNcricinfo tells you all you need to know about his heritage. Listed among his major teams are Durham, Durham 2nd XI, Durham Academy, Durham Under-13s, Durham Under-14s, Durham Under-15s, Durham Under-17s, England Under-19s and Northumberland - the latter a digression into Minor Counties cricket last summer, in which he produced a century in the semi-final of the Knockout Trophy against Lincolnshire that confirmed his readiness for the big time.

Two weeks later, in August, he was making a trip to Scarborough to take on the champions-elect Yorkshire and their battery of England seamers - surely one of the toughest assignments any young cricketer could be offered for his county debut. And yet, despite attracting arguably the ball of the match from Liam Plunkett to be bowled for a duck in his maiden innings, Burnham responded with pluck second-time around, digging in for a maiden fifty before being last man out in a 183-run defeat.

"That was a big challenge," he said. "I was out of my comfort zone, with fast bowlers and nothing I'd ever done before. But I think I've got the right mentality, and I think whatever gets thrown in front of us, I'll give it a good go, and it worked for us in that second innings.

"It gave us a lot of belief in my own ability and how I go about things," he added. "I used to complicate it a lot with my batting but, since that day, I've realised I can do it and I just need to back myself."

This outing in South London, by contrast, was a gentle zephyr. As on the second day, Burnham was challenged from the outset as Tom Curran and Ansari resumed the attack with a probing pace and spin combination. It was Curran who produced Burnham's solitary moment of genuine alarm in the morning session, when a sharp bouncer ballooned off the splice into no-man's land in the covers.

But with Scott Borthwick alongside Burnham in a third-wicket stand of 145, any prospect of Surrey bringing their scoreboard pressure to bear was soon forgotten. The introduction of Gareth Batty prompted a step-up in tempo from Burnham, who came down the track in a mature bid to unsettle a bowler whose own first-class debut, for Yorkshire against Lancashire at Headingley in April 1997, had come when Burnham himself was three months old.

"It was a pretty flat wicket, and Batty's been around and seen a lot of cricket," he explained. "I thought if I let him bowl, he'll bowl the same ball over and over again and I won't score a run, so I just thought give it a go and it paid off."

Surrey kept plugging away nonetheless, and were eventually rewarded with a pair of breakthroughs either side of lunch as, first, Borthwick propped forward to Batty to be pinned lbw for 77 before Ben Stokes, who never quite got going in his brief stay of 12, misread the flight of another guileful delivery from Ansari and popped a return catch back to the bowler.

However, Michael Richardson kept Burnham company through some, if not nervous, then mildly twitchy nineties as the pair added 91 to scotch any notion of a collapse. And then, in the 87th over and from his 166th delivery, a nudged single into the covers and a gleeful leap at the non-striker's end confirmed the fulfilment of an ambition that Burnham had been harbouring ever since his first appearance in Durham colours, more than half his lifetime ago.

"This is a moment that I have dreamed about for a long time - every since I first played for Durham Under 9s as a seven-year-old," he said. "I scored 22 against Cumbria that day, but I could hardly hit the ball off the square. It's a very proud moment for all my family."

Burnham's first instinct after his innings was to call his mother back in their family home in Esh Winning.

"My mam made a lot of sacrifices for me when I was growing up," he said. "It was always her who had to get off work, or change jobs, so she could run me around to my cricket. Dad was always away working, so it had to be her. It was great to hear how pleased and proud she was that I had scored my first hundred."

"Playing at The Oval for the first time is just great, so to score a hundred here is a big moment in my career. Hopefully I can continue to score runs and I'm very confident in my game at the minute. I'm relaxed in the dressing room and I'm just concentrating on playing every ball on its merit."