Captain Cummins tackles toughest day in top job

There might be strains of the fabled 2005 Ashes series recognisable as the current iteration approaches a riveting climax, but there are also some distant echoes of an even earlier contest that galvanised and emboldened cricket fans throughout England.

Those who are older enough to remember, or perhaps not-yet-quite old enough to habitually forget, might draw parallels to the 1981 campaign that is still simply referred to by fans on both sides of the tribal divide as 'Botham's Ashes'.

Certainly the link was unavoidable on day two at Old Trafford when England opener Zak Crawley blazed the fastest Ashes century seen at the 140-year-old venue since Ian Botham's 86-ball hundred that irrevocably turned that 1981 battle in England's favour.

While Botham's 118 from 102 balls faced came in the middle-order of England's second innings in the fifth game of that six-Test summer, Crawley began against the new ball and he pushed on to 189 at better than a run a ball to set a new benchmark for fastest scores of 150-plus at Old Trafford.

But the Venn diagram of 1981 intersecting with 2023 might contain a couple of other commonalities that prove instructive as the final 10 days of this duel play out.

For a start, the groundswell of support for England that built as Botham destroyed Australia with the bat in the third Test at Headingly back then before Bob Willis scythed through with the ball (after England were subjected to the follow-on) was reminiscent to the mood on Test match terraces now.

The ignition point for the current messianic wave of parochialism seems to be the stumping of Jonny Bairstow at Lord's that proved so incendiary it sent the normally genteel MCC members into a rage more regularly witnessed among brawling bands of Premier League football fans.

In 1981, it wasn't only Botham's herculean deeds with bat and ball after Australia snuck home in the first Test and held out for a draw in the second with established stars the ilk of Dennis Lillee, Allan Border, Terry Alderman and Rod Marsh leading the charge.

The public dander was also raised when Botham was summarily removed from the captaincy after the second match at Lord's, and replaced by cerebral tactician Mike Brearley who hadn't even made the starting XI for the first two Tests.

And therein lies perhaps the most pertinent link between the two events 42 years apart because the retrospective analysis as to why Botham became such a lethal force was partly due to his umbrage at being dumped, but largely because he was suddenly freed form the triple burden of batting, bowling and leadership.

Which brings us circuitously to Australia's current captain, Pat Cummins.

The first fast bowler to permanently hold the men's Test captaincy for Australia, Cummins has handled the job with absolute aplomb in taking his team to an Ashes win in his first campaign at the helm, an historic series win in Pakistan and the World Test Championship title last month.

But in the face of England's most brazen attack of their 'Bazball' era at Old Trafford on Thursday, there were a few concerns aired that perhaps the 30-year-old's plate is beginning to overfill.

His dismissal from the morning's opening delivery, which he drove at friendly height and pace to his captaincy rival Ben Stokes, was hardly instructive but it meant – after his resurgent batting carried Australia to victory at Edgbaston – his past three innings have yielded 0, 1 and 1.

Of greater consequence was the manner in which England's rampant batting pair Crawley and Joe Root (84 off 95 balls) seemingly went after Australia's standard-bearer after Cummins relinquished the role of opening bowler for the first time in the series.

Image Id: AF0F124B66F04824A2FAE743E995B3FC Image Caption: Pat Cummins congratulates Zak Crawley after his scintillating 189 on day two // Getty

Whether or not the England pair sensed that as an opportunity to target Cummins remains unknown, but his return of 0-93 from 16 overs represents the most expensive bowling stint (albeit in an as-yet-uncompleted innings) of his 54-Test career to date.

The die was seemingly set when Crawley aimed a typically ambitious drive at the first ball Cummins sent down, in the 12th over of England's innings when the opener had reached 18 from 27 balls faced.

It skewed from an inside edge perilously close to Crawley's stumps, but brought him a single that become a more steady flow of runs as part-time number three Moeen Ali helped himself to consecutive boundaries in Cummins' next over.

The onslaught stepped up after lunch when Moeen stroked the first ball of the session from the Australia skipper sumptuously through cover for a boundary, before another Crawley inside edge flicked the very tip of keeper Alex Carey's outstretched left glove en route to another four.

An outside edge didn’t quite carry to gully, then the short-ball ploy when Root reached the middle yielded more boundaries on a pitch that only emboldened England to back their inner-Bazball.

As former New Zealand spinner Australia assistant-coach Dan Vettori – himself an ex-Test skipper forced to juggle his own bowling requirements alongside on-field planning – acknowledged, the job of captain-cum-bowler is made infinitely tougher when teams are charging in the manner of England yesterday.

"I think it's different because the game's on such high-octane in terms of the series and the way England play, and how good they've been particularly today," Vettori said at the close of a sobering second day that saw England 4-384 from 72 overs and 67 runs in front.

"They've been so aggressive and they take the game on, so it's a constant factor trying to marry up your own bowing versus the plans.

"But I think through the whole series Pat's been exceptional."

While conceding runs at the rate of 5.81 per over is unprecedented for Cummins – his previous most costly bowling in a Test innings was 5.25 against India at Dharamsala in 2017, his second Test back after a six-year injury lay-off – there were other signs of the challenges captaincy presents in the face of such a withering attack.

Desperate for a breakthrough as the Crawley-Root union passed 100, Cummins felt convinced he had Root lbw to a ball that skidded through low and was saved from squandering a review – which would have shown clearly the ex-England captain had hit it – when a belated no-ball signal was made.

There was also the couple of catching opportunities from miscued pull shots off Moeen shortly before the left-hander was dismissed, the first of which Cummins seemingly lost in the Old Trafford background and the second that slipped through his outstretched fingers low to the ground as he dived late.

The final frustration came when, late in the day, Cummins failed to back-up a throw hurled in from the deep to the non-striker's end stumps that eluded bowler Cameron Green and brought a couple of overthrows as well as howls of derisive delight from the Old Trafford crowd.

It rounded out perhaps the toughest day of Cummins' captaincy tenure, the degree of difficulty highlighted by the length of conversations he held with other on-field leaders (most notably Smith) as England's batters put his bowlers to the sword.

Australia are far from out of this Test with their second innings to come and rain of varying intensity and duration forecast across the remaining three days.

And with the Ashes squarely on the line, Australia's joint leading wicket-taker of the campaign to date (alongside Mitchell Starc) will unquestionably bounce back.

But it's equally likely he won't find many more challenging days than he experienced at Old Trafford where he was forced to call upon the counsel of others as well as his own canny captaincy instincts to navigate a counter-attack the likes of which few skippers have confronted.

"He likes advice, he likes to talk to people around the group," Vettori said of Cummins' leadership style.

"You see him often with Steve Smith so there's a lot of collaboration going on.

"I think it was just one of those sessions where we just pushed exceptionally hard and England responded.

"And the amount of boundaries they were able to score even with the fields set the way they were, we just weren't able to mitigate that run rate as well.

"I think it's been a challenge but also a challenge that the bowlers have enjoyed because there are wicket-taking options all the way through the series.

"It feels like the bowler is in the game the whole time, and I think it's trying to balance those two things out.

"They're scoring quickly, you feel like you can take a wicket to keep going, to keep pressing.

"But probably today it was the first day that our press was met with them going at seven (runs) an over."