Australia captain and his team hold their nerve in the face of a ‘Bazball’ onslaught on the field and ‘boring’ taunts off it
Andrew McGlashan21-Jun-2023Pat Cummins started and finished the Edgbaston Test with boundaries. The first cracked off the middle of Zak Crawley’s bat as England made their intentions clear, but it was the last which decided a pulsating match as his thick edge down to deep third, palmed over the rope by Harry Brook, gave Australia a heart-stopping victory that appeared to be beyond them a little more than an hour earlier.It isn’t that Cummins doesn’t do emotion on the field – he can be as pumped as anyone taking wickets, as he showed with the key scalps of Ollie Pope and Ben Stokes on the fourth day – but there was something more about the roar, leap, bat throw and fist-pump that followed those winnings runs.This game had taken everyone involved (on and off the field) to the wire. Cameron Green looked on with his head buried in his top. Fans of both sides struggled to watch. Only when that final delivery bounced into the boundary markers at 7.21pm, after a delayed start on the eve of the longest day of the year, was it finally clear there would be no more twists.Related
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As morning broke in Australia, the result was, perhaps unsurprisingly, being proclaimed as one of the team’s greatest. Yet even when the immediacy of it all dies down this is a match – and victory – that will stand the test of time.A team playing a fast game had been trumped, just, by a team playing the long game. That is not to say that Australia have found the solution to ‘Bazball’ – things could look very different again after the Lord’s Test – but they did not get drawn into trying to match their opponents. “Boring, boring, Aussies” came the chant from the Hollies Stand as Usman Khawaja ground out his runs on the fourth afternoon. A couple more wickets and Australia’s approach may have been viewed differently, but this is a tough cricket team and they dug as deep as they have ever had to.Adaptability has been a hallmark of them over their successful World Test Championship run. They weren’t perfect, but having billed the Pakistan tour as a “15-day marathon” they won the series in the final session (yes, England won all three of their Tests playing an entirely different style). In Sri Lanka they took a Test on a bunsen and even in India, where they had got it wrong to start with, they avoided a meltdown and secured a famous victory in Indore. Now they are 1-0 up in an away Ashes.
“You just need that belief that you can win from anywhere…that belief that anyone is a match-winner and you can be the guy to step up and win. When you are in the backyard as a kid, you wish to be in these moments and going out there in the middle of an Ashes series.”Pat Cummins
Australia’s opening-day tactics at Edgbaston came under the spotlight – Cummins began with a deep point, Nathan Lyon with four fielders in the deep – when they appeared happy to defer to England’s inevitable aggression. They certainly didn’t make the running, but neither did they allow England to completely run away.”We are a fairly stable team and we know what we need to do to be at our best and will keep doubling down on that,” Cummins said.Then on the final afternoon, there was a period against Joe Root and Ben Stokes operating with the old ball where the scoring almost froze. Alex Carey tried to change the tempo but rifled a drive back at Root who held the stinging catch brilliantly in his follow-through. At that point, Australia needed 54 with two wickets in hand. On the fourth evening, Lyon had said he hoped he would not have to strap on the pads, although added he “would give it a crack” if he had to.England delayed taking the second new ball and Cummins seized his moment with two sixes off what became the final over of Root’s spell. Suddenly it was 37 needed; still plenty with Josh Hazlewood to come, but carefully the pair whittled it down although had Stokes held a stunning catch running back off from square leg offered by Lyon the game was probably done. Such were the margins. Lyon’s princely off-drive against Stuart Broad felt like a big moment. “I looked at him, he walked past and said ‘nice shot Garry!’ Think he was happy,” Cummins said at the presentation.Successful fourth-innings chases of significant size been rare for Australia (that is often because they have dominated games from the start, especially at home) and this was their highest since the 310 for 8 against South Africa in Johannesburg in 2011 which just so happened to be Cummins’ debut. The then 18-year-old, who had earlier taken a six-wicket haul, finished unbeaten on 13, swinging the winning runs through midwicket off Imran Tahir. It would be another six years before Cummins played another Test.”I actually did think back to my debut,” he said. “At one stage, batting out there with Nathan I was imagining him in the sheds praying like he was on my debut.”Pat Cummins had his best Test with the bat•AFP/Getty ImagesThere had been promise in Cummins’ batting earlier in his career. After 18 Tests he was averaging 21.12 with two half-centuries but that has steadily slipped. However, this has been his finest game with the bat – his first-innings 38 helping narrow England’s lead to just seven while overall it was the most runs he had contributed in a Test – and if it’s the signs of a longer-term revival in his run-scoring it will add a valuable component to a strong Australia side at No. 8 or 9.As well as the large chase, there was also the narrow win. While comparisons with 2005 are inevitable – “I think we were all about 10 years old,” Cummins joked – for the pair at the crease when it ended this offered some redemption for Headingley in 2019 when, in the field that time, Cummins and Lyon were central to the drama that unfolded around Stokes’ great innings.”Think it’s huge,” Cummins said. “You just need that belief that you can win from anywhere…that belief that anyone is a match-winner and you can be the guy to step up and win. When you are in the backyard as a kid, you wish to be in these moments and going out there in the middle of an Ashes series.”The result was also significant for the lack of runs contributed by Marnus Labuschagne and Steven Smith – just 35 across their four innings, the lowest in a win. Having spent so many hours bowling against Smith in particular, that will sting England. It may yet prove decisive over the five Tests that Australia have the best opener and best spinner on either side.However, for all the analysing and deep-diving that will be part of this series, perhaps the most fitting final word on its first chapter should go to the Player of the Match, Khawaja who spent all but 25 overs on the field. “Not going to lie, I was absolutely s***ing myself for the last five minutes there,” he said. “It’s so heart-wrenching. An unbelievable game.”
