In the last 72 hours everyone has absolutely beaten Australia and in particular Captain Pat Cummins. I sympathize with him because some of the pile has been a bit harsh. It is a big call to suddenly say that he is not the man for the job. I still believe he is. But at the same time, there are legitimate questions to ask.
First, the decision not to play a frontline spinner in this test match. Personally, I would have liked a frontline spinner to be trusted and supported to play. Five days of cricket is a long time and you’re not sure what’s going to happen with the weather.
Has Mitchell Marsh’s beating in Headingley confused voters’ thinking? In my mind it was pretty clear that Cameron Green has been the all-rounder of choice for the past few years and when he’s fit he’ll fit right back in.
On the face of it, it looks like Australia almost took the easy option of dropping the young spinner, rather than making the tougher selection decision and leaving out one of the all-rounders. It would be interesting to hear the thoughts of Australia’s top spinner, Nathan Lyon, on the decision not to play Todd Murphy.
There has also been much criticism of Australia’s strategy of deploying multiple sweepers and allowing England to play cricket at very low risk while scoring at five or more runs per over.
Australian captain Pat Cummins has been heavily criticized in recent days for several decisions he has made
A big call was leaving out spinner Todd Murphy (pictured) and choosing to play both Mitchell Marsh and Cameron Green
It’s possible England’s Bazball approach has spooked Australia with the series on the cutting edge
I suspect Australia thinks they think England will be very aggressive anyway, so they might as well guard borders. However, the price of this is the number of easy runs England have been allowed to score.
I wonder how the Australian quicks feel when pushed for an easy single when they’ve run their best ball. It must drain. Australia bowled just three maidens in 107.4 overs in England’s first innings, which is insane.
Fewer attacking fields minimize the chances of creating sets of overs that go for two runs or less. Those overs create opportunities for wickets as the batters want to shift the scoreboard and take more risks.
Did Bazball Scare Australia? A number of Australian players have insisted in interviews that they will play their way and that they will focus on what they can do. But what we have seen are reactive plans for England’s style of play. We wouldn’t see all these defensive pitches and raucous bouncer plans if Australia just focused on what they do well.
I’ve also always believed that bowlers relax a bit knowing they have a lot of boundary protection and therefore aren’t as accurate in their execution. As a bowler, with a more offensive pitch, you know you have to be good with your execution or you will be penalized. With fields spread and waiting for mistakes, it played into the hands of England.
That said, being a fast bowling captain is a very difficult job. There’s a reason there haven’t been many over the years. You have to concentrate on your job, which is very physically demanding, and then you need the mental capacity to make decisions about who is bowling on the other side, field places and the score of the game.
A lot of people think Steve Smith runs the show, but I don’t believe that. I think Pat is a really strong character and he’s his own man. He may take advice from Smith, but why wouldn’t he? Steve is a great player and was captain for many years.
I think some Australians who demand a captain change do so largely because they understand how important a player Pat is as a thoroughly fast bowler. Whether he has a ‘c’ next to his name or not, we don’t care. We just want to make sure he does his job with the ball.
At some point in the future, Pat may very well decide that he just wants to focus on his bowling. In the next 12 months Pat is captain in my eyes.
Australia have been urged to focus on what they do well rather than reacting to England’s play
Many people have claimed that former Steve Smith is actually running the show for Australia
It is possible that Cummins will step down at some point in the future to focus on his bowling
But there will be a transfer at some point and I see Travis Head becoming Australia’s captain in the long run.
He was appointed captain of South Australia at the age of 20, so he has had a great apprenticeship and learned all the attributes of first-class leadership. I worked closely with him for many, many years and I think he would be an inspired choice. If he got that chance, I think he would do a great job.
As for the rest of this series, regardless of the result here, Australia will really need to think about their strategy in the field ahead of the Fifth Test. But I still think they can do the job at the Oval. You start each Test again.
Selfishly, with my Australian hat on, if we can get a draw out of this it would be great. But when I put on my neutral hat, going into the Oval at 2-2 is what everyone wants to see. It would be an absolute humdinger of a test match.