Ruminating on Pat Cummins’ scorching spell to South Africa’s middle order on the penultimate evening of the SCG Test, it was hard not to recall numerous other great stints by the Australian captain on the same ground.
As early as his first SCG Sheffield Shield game in 2011, a teenaged Cummins turned heads by hurling down some truly fearsome bouncers, hitting Western Australia’s Marcus North on the helmet.
There was his fire and brimstone attack on India as the shadows grew long in January 2021, when precious little help could be found from the pitch.
Pat Cummins has won just two of his seven SCG Tests. Credit:Getty Images
And last year Cummins conjured a pair of snaking new-ball inswingers to break open England’s batting as another visiting side scrambled for the draw.
On day five this year, some 20,470 spectators turned up to the SCG on Sunday hoping for more of the same. The sight of Cummins making something happen out of nowhere, rousing himself to threaten the bodies and stumps of batters who had previously been making relatively serene progress.
Sydney’s knowledgeable crowds always seem alert to these scenarios, craning their necks and leaning forward in their seats while giving Cummins a hearty share of affirmation: in some one-sided seasons, such moments have offered the theatre for which Test match cricket is so revered.
Pat Cummins appeals.Credit:AP
But in the recurring nature of these tableaus in Sydney there is something else to ponder, in terms of how they keep happening here. Apart from India, Australia’s toughest Test match opponent on home soil in recent years is not so much a country as a venue.
Over the past decade, Australia have not lost a match in Sydney. Their most recent Test defeat was as far back as Usman Khawaja’s debut here in January 2011 against Andrew Strauss’ England XI.
But at the same time, only three of the past nine Tests have resulted in Australian victories. Appreciable rainfall has contributed to stalemates against the West Indies in 2016, India in 2019 and South Africa this year.
Yet in 2015, 2021 and 2022, weeks of fine enough weather also saw draws, as the Australians struggled to “crack the nut” presented by Sydney conditions that are slow and holding, not readily suited to their customary formula of three quicks, a spinner and an all-rounder.
Every year, it seems, the national selectors add an extra spin bowler to the SCG squad, and the captain then finds himself juggling a different combination to the Australian norm. This time around, each of Cameron Green and Mitchell Starc would have proven extremely useful to Australia’s balance of options.
Josh Hazlewood celebrates dismissing Simon Harmer.Credit:AP
Without either, Cummins and Josh Hazlewood provided the greatest threat to a Proteas line-up that has offered more steel among the bowlers than the batters for much of the series. Much as Marco Jansen had done in Melbourne, Simon Harmer and Keshav Maharaj frustrated the hosts with a thoroughly sound mix of defence and attack.
By contrast, neither Nathan Lyon nor Ashton Agar were able to impose themselves. Both were reasonably accurate, but in terms of a threat for wickets it was the rougher off-spin of Travis Head – by his own admission able to gain natural variation because his action is not consistent – that often looked most likely. Late in the day, Marnus Labuschagne’s leg spin also looked to have been underused.
When Lyon did get some worthwhile torque in the afternoon, he was twice denied lbw referrals against Harmer. Cussing and gesticulating like the world’s unluckiest bowler, Lyon might have had more luck with umpire Paul Reiffel from around the wicket, straightening the ball down the line of the stumps.
Agar, meanwhile, looked more or less the same bowler who has taken just 36 wickets at 50.55 in 17 first-class matches since his previous Test match, in Bangladesh in 2017. In other words, modest. All but one of those matches have been in Australia.
Certainly, Cummins will want to see more energy on the ball for the looming India tour. Lyon, Agar and their spin coach Dan Vettori will all know that different skills are required in south Asia, and there will now be time to drill them prior to the first Test in Nagpur. Victoria’s Todd Murphy, too, will present a strong case for inclusion, as he continues to be mentored by Craig Howard.
When breakthroughs came, they did so through the excellence of Hazlewood, reversing the ageing ball on an abrasive surface. If Cummins did not manage to summon another spell to remember, he had the consolation of knowing even another half-day free of rain may have been enough to win.
Nevertheless, Sydney is currently cast in a role where its climate and conditions have a tendency to put the Australians just a little off-balance with the ball. Those memorable Cummins spells, with the SCG crowd fully engaged regardless of other events that summer, are drawn chiefly from the bowler’s fight to bend unhelpful circumstances to his will.
As well as affording interludes of considerable drama, this also has the effect of taking Australia’s Test players out of their comfort zone. Looking at the assignments to be faced in India and England this year, that is not altogether a bad thing.
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