The Ashes – Third Test, Adelaide: Am I The Only?

 

Am I the only person who was so dismayed by Pat Cummins’s captaincy on the final morning of the Adelaide Test that he got up and left the ground, never to return?

 

                  When the day began the task was simple for Cummins. Blind Freddy or the Drover’s Dog would have opened the attack with Nathan Lyon at the river end and any one of Mitchell Starc (the bowler of the series and in the form of his life), Cummins himself (who had bowled brilliantly on his return from injury) or Scott Boland (whose command of length and direction throughout the match had been admirable) should have begun first and been rotated at the other end.

 

                  But no. Cameron Green was employed and not just for one or two overs but for seven, part of the time with a ludicrous Bodyline-style field with four men on the legside boundaries, another on the fence as a virtual long stop, and delivering a diet of short-pitched crap. Was this the way to win a Test match?

 

                  I was getting restive. The tactic was offering sighters to overnight batsmen Jamie Smith and Will Jacks.  “Where’s Peter Roebuck when you need him in the commentary box” I muttered to a friend before stretching my legs behind the stand and where I bumped into a former Test player. Was he similarly underwhelmed? We exchanged brief pleasantries and I said, “Cummins is obviously trying to play Green into the next Test.” “Agreed”, he replied.

 

                  Before returning to my seat a shower of rain intervened and (as is common practice these days) play which should have been held up for no more than five minutes was delayed for around half an hour.

 

                  The game resumed at 11.20 and I expected that sense would now prevail. Instead, Green continued. At this point I felt my cricket intelligence – based on 60 years watching and 40 years writing about the game – was being insulted. “PUT A BOWLER ON!”, I bellowed from the Riverbank Stand and when Green came again to the bowling crease I left and returned to my home to watch England reach 7-309 at lunch and give their supporters hope of an unlikely victory in the afternoon.

 

                  Since the match has ended, I’ve seen reports that Cummins was delaying his main pace attack until the second new ball but at the start of play that was 17 overs away. Most of us who had gone to the Oval probably expected that England would be dispatched in the first hour. Overnight they were 6-207 and had added 60 runs when the new ball was taken.

 

                  Australia deservedly won the Test and the Ashes. Smith, Jacks and Brydon Carse batted ably but their hopes should have been extinguished much earlier than they were.

 

 

More from Bernard can be read Here

 

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