There are bad days, and then there’s what Australia have endured on Days 2 and 3 of the fourth Ashes Test at Old Trafford in Manchester. If Zak Crawley deflated the egos of the Australian bowlers by plundering 189 runs off 182 balls on Thursday, Jonny Bairstow toyed with them on Friday with a scintillating 81-ball unbeaten 99 that included a last-wicket stand of 66 runs with James Anderson.
The carnage across the two days helped England reach a first-innings total of 592 for a mammoth lead of 275 runs. It's the first time since the start of the 1989 Ashes that Australia have allowed England to score 500-plus at home. The previous instance, at Edgbaston in 1985, came when the Australians were reeling from the retirements of Dennis Lillee, Greg Chappell and Rod Marsh a year earlier.
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Inevitably, this will lead to questions about Pat Cummins’s captaincy. When he was appointed Test captain in November 2021, the first specialist pacer to lead Australia in 65 years, there was unbridled excitement about what a bowling captain will bring to the table.
But some of that optimism is bound to wane when the opposition achieves a run rate of 5.49 while batting more than 100 overs. While 11 wins in 19 Tests isn't a bad record to possess as captain, Cummins looked bereft of clear ideas and inspiration in England’s first innings at Old Trafford. The job is anyway riddled with complexity when this thrill-a-minute England batting-lineup gets going, never mind needing to take wickets off your own bowling as well.
{{/usCountry}}But some of that optimism is bound to wane when the opposition achieves a run rate of 5.49 while batting more than 100 overs. While 11 wins in 19 Tests isn't a bad record to possess as captain, Cummins looked bereft of clear ideas and inspiration in England’s first innings at Old Trafford. The job is anyway riddled with complexity when this thrill-a-minute England batting-lineup gets going, never mind needing to take wickets off your own bowling as well.
{{/usCountry}}Cummins has fallen short on that front in Manchester. In 23 ineffective overs, he leaked 129 runs at an economy of 5.6 for just one wicket. Fast bowling is a physically demanding exercise, and to have your brain ticking all the time as captain is bound to drain your mental reserves as well. Should Cummins reconsider his leadership ambitions at the end of this Ashes series?
Over the past three days, many of Australia’s decisions have raised eyebrows. When Crawley and Root were clobbering fours and sixes on Thursday, they could have bowled on one side of the wicket and set fields accordingly to curb the scoring. They didn’t. When they went short of a length, they should have attempted proper bouncers that compelled the England batters to take evasive action. They didn’t, instead dishing out half-trackers that Crawley and Root were able to dispatch with minimum fuss. They could have brought on Mitchell Marsh, who dismissed Crawley twice in Headingley, earlier than the 36th over. They didn’t. Going back to Day 1, they could have picked spinner Todd Murphy to avoid the one-dimensional nature of this attack. They didn’t.
The buck eventually has to stop with Cummins. “Often when you look down on the Australian side historically, you know who the captain is, whether it be Taylor, Border, Ponting, Waugh. If you look down today, there will have been a lot of cricketers waving their arms around trying to help their captain,” said former England captain Nasser Hussain on Sky Sports.
That Cummins dropped Moeen Ali at mid-on and was out off the first ball of Day 2 only added to his misery. Former New Zealand captain Dan Vettori, who is Australia’s assistant coach, came to Cummins’s defence on Thursday. “It is a constant factor trying to marry up your own bowling against the plans. Pat likes advice, he likes to talk to people around the group. It was just one of those sessions where we pushed exceptionally hard and England responded.”
During the Test series in India in February-March too, Cummins didn’t come across as a captain in control of on-field proceedings. It was no coincidence perhaps that Australia lost the Tests in Nagpur and Delhi before Steve Smith led Australia to a win in Indore and a draw in Ahmedabad in Cummins’s absence. Even at Old Trafford, Smith was orchestrating the field at times as Cummins sought help from his teammates.
Captaincy is eventually about results, and Cummins may still have the honour of being the first Australian captain since Steve Waugh in 2001 to win a Test series in England. But if Cummins’s bowling suffers like it has in Manchester, is it worth the hassle? That’s what Australia will have to ask themselves at the end of this series.