The Australian home Test cricket “season”, if that’s what it is, is five days into its 40-day run.
Between last Wednesday’s opening and the closing day on 8 January, the program squeezes five matches into five and a half weeks. Back-to-back Test matches used to require special management. Fast bowlers hate them. This season they go back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. The leather-flingers will be in mutiny.
As the hosts went through their paces in finishing off a stubborn West Indies in Perth on Sunday, a parallel narrative was beginning to unfold, in which we were not seeing the end of a prestigious international fixture but the start of a fairly gruelling endurance event.
The reason behind this compression is well-worn: Australia is interlocked with a global schedule and no longer sets its own rules on its own turf. More interesting than the cause, right now, are the consequences.
First man down was the most consequential. Fast bowlers have been subject to all sorts of unfounded prejudices when it comes to captaincy, but one that is founded in the evidence is the injury risk. Patrick Cummins’s soundness has been remarkable since his return from his six-year break, and of little concern since he became Test captain a year ago.
Now, with a minor quadriceps strain, he was unable to bowl; or, if you believed the brains trust, he was able to bowl but uneasy about the risk. Which left the questionable sight of a premier bowler being rested, or his workload “managed”, while a Test match, the pinnacle of cricket, was still in progress. Cummins remained on the field in case he was needed to bowl or to make crucial decisions.
Nathan Lyon and Pat Cummins celebrate his breakthrough wickets.Credit:Getty
To see him jog, gingerly, alongside a ball dribbling into the outfield was to wince at every stride.
A chain reaction followed. The longer Cummins was rested, the longer the West Indies resisted.
The longer they resisted, the heavier the load on Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc, not to mention on the rest of the team who would no doubt have been happier sitting in ice baths or sucking glucose gels or checking their phones or whatever they do to celebrate a Test match win during a three-day break with a three-hour flight.
In any case, the staleness from long days in the field might not be felt today but can accumulate until it
finally plays against South Africa around Christmas.
The West Indians only have to hold themselves together for two weeks. They have already lost Nkrumah Bonner to concussion and Kemar Roach’s and Kyle Mayers’s bowling to injury, and have called up a replacement for the second Test match in Adelaide.
But they did not drop their bundle in their second innings. They tried their very best to preserve a chance of
winning the series.
They couldn’t manage it, but their resilience has done a favour to the South Africans when they tag-team in for the second half of the month.
For the sake of body and soul, the Australians would prefer pitches and an opponent like last summer’s: sporting and flaccid, respectively. They can only buy themselves more rest time between matches by finishing those matches early, as they were able to do in the Ashes. But here’s another catch. The season is short enough as it is without abbreviated games.
Nathan Lyon steered Australia to victory in Perth.Credit:Getty
The broadcasters and administrators prefer docile surfaces like the one at Perth Stadium, giving them the full 25 days of content that they bought and sold.
So, unless the West Indians and South Africans fold as meekly as England last summer, the next five weeks
will be as wearing on the Australians as the past five days.
What this means is a big month for Nathan Lyon, who, as so often, was best when fresh. His dismissal of Kraigg Brathwaite with a perfectly executed change of pace was Lyon at his very finest.
He wheeled away with his patented mix of guile and stoicism and performed his job for his team. He thoroughly deserved his six wickets. Adelaide is his favourite venue, whether the ball is red or pink, and he will go well there too.
Travis Head also bowled some nice tweakers, as he had on the subcontinent during the winter. Lyon and Head will be a compelling pair to watch for the next month, if you like that kind of thing.
Australia’s performance in Perth was a satisfactory start to their campaign. They went about their work methodically. But there’s the other consequence: if the other Australian pitches are as stable as this one in Perth, it is going to feel like five weeks of work for them.
What about for us? Punching out five Test matches in five weeks, with the best players becoming unavailable through injury or its prevention, risks turning something beautiful and variegated into a weekly grind. Test cricket requires resilience, of course, but it can also do with a splash of Christmas joy.
Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
