As important was his five-wicket haul, Pat Cummins also proved his shrewd captaincy skills
Patrick Cummins had just abducted Hasan Ali and was indulging in the most modest of his many wicket celebrations for the day. There was nothing more than a punch in the air, a few high-fives followed by a pat on the head to Steve Smith for taking a nice low hold. It was his third wicket in eight deliveries. Within about ten minutes, he had completely dismantled the Pakistani inferior order.
But even as the rest of his teammates rallied around their delighted skipper, Cummins the bowler had transformed into Cummins the captain. He broke away from the peloton for a quick chat with Mitchell Starc. Cummins then returned to explain to Cameron Green, whom he had asked to warm up and replace Starc at the opposite end, very respectfully why he had changed his mind. Green, of course, had no qualms about it.
Australia seized the moment in incredible fashion at Lahore Stadium on Wednesday 23 March. They had taken five Pakistani wickets for 20 runs. But Babar Azam still stood guard and stood straight to one end. Day 3 wouldn’t entirely belong to the visitors if it hadn’t been out. And Cummins had decided to give Starc, who had already had five overs in the spell, an extra flurry.
All it took for the masterstroke to pay off was a single delivery as Starc got a ball in length to form a bit more than Babar expected to trap him in front. Captain Cummins had done it again. The call to go with Starc rather than Green could count as a rather unspectacular moment and even get lost in an otherwise spectacular day for Cummins and Australia. In that time, he went from being the first fast bowler to captain Australia in the Tests for a long time to becoming the first fast bowler to lead Australia for a long time. And rightly so.
The magical deliveries we now expect from him. The ability to create magic from terrain with no tricks to offer, we’ve come to expect from him. The unique skill of giving his team the upper hand when the odds are completely against them, we have come to demand. And that’s exactly what he did single-handedly long before he teamed up with Starc to demolish Pakistan’s opening innings.
While that demolition derby is ultimately what will be most remembered from the day’s game, it was Azhar Ali’s wicket in the second session that proved why Cummins is by far the most hard-hitting fast bowler in his generation.
Because he succeeded when he really had no reasonable way to do it. The ground offered him nothing. The ball offered him nothing. It was a 6+ ball that didn’t swing or kink and if anything made the hitter easier than it was before. Azhar, on the other hand, had looked perfectly comfortable around the time he came out at bat in a test match on his home turf. But as only Cummins can, the Australia captain produced a few outside edges in the first four deliveries of his last spell, even if they didn’t wear down a defender.
As only Cummins can do, he had also managed to make a batter in complete control look a little bored. And then, as Azhar returned a ball to him with aplomb, Cummins also showed he could produce magic with a ball coming towards his hand rather than leaving it by pulling off a sensational hold in his follow-up. On the hottest afternoon of the test, in the least useful phase of the contest, Cummins had pulled off a coup. Azhar could only shake his head as he walked away even as the Australia captain remained on his knees, punching the air and roaring as loudly as the thousands of Pakistanis around the stadium had been until then. Once again, Cummins hadn’t just seized a moment, he had created one.
About an hour later, it was time for him to do so in his captain avatar. He had used Starc for only a few overs with the second new ball. And as he brought the left arm back in the 107th inning, Fawad Alam had clung unconvincingly against the Australian spinners. The ball was in his 27th game, the perfect time for Starc to be at his best with Alam, the perfect hitter he is unleashing against. It only took three deliveries. He went straight and straight with the first, short and wide with the second before landing it the perfect length and backing sharply past the ill-fated defenses of the clumsy southpaw. It was just the wicket Starc needed to get going.
Only two overs later he would produce arguably the most replayable ball in the series, Starc would come in at a wide angle around the wicket and roll the ball back so late and tricky that Mohammad Rizwan would remain frozen, his feet wedged between them and his bat coming down the wrong line with the ball crashing into his stump. It was the kind of delivery for which the GIFfile was invented.
Rizwan’s withdrawal was the signal for Cummins to put on his poacher’s hat and get back up again for the final hunt. It would only take 5 overs from this point for Pakistan to lose their last 5 wickets. It would only take less than half an hour from that point for Starc and Cummins to give Australia the lead in a game that had lacked it until then.
Unlike Karachi, it wasn’t Starc and Cummins paying homage to Wasim and Waqar with a reverse masterclass in the subcontinent. Rather, it was Starc and Cummins doing what they did best regardless of the conditions. It was Starc and Cummins showing off their world-class pedigree.
If you took away the buzz of Pakistan Day, the raucous noise of the stadium DJ and the cacophonous sounds of vuvuzelas, it could well have been Starc and Cummins crossing a side at the Adelaide Oval or somewhere in the Caribbean with an old ball . After all, they were hitting the top of the stump on a pitch where the ball had otherwise hit the wicketkeeper near his ankles. After all, they were beating hitters for pace on a pitch that would otherwise have been too slow for even the hitters to time the ball. After all, they had brought back to life a test match that otherwise seemed to just fade away.
