He was switched on enough to run out Cheteshwar Pujara with a diving direct hit from mid-on from the last ball of the day in Adelaide in 2018. Cummins is a top-notch fielder, so he tends to be close to the wicket in any case. After an hour of gut-busting effort, it's fair enough that bowlers would like to graze at fine leg for a session and not think about anything much.īatters, meanwhile, only have to stand at slip and tell jokes as they try to forget the existential dread of the next time they come out to face the bowling.īut that isn't to say it can't be done. Thirty-yard sprints over and over before hurling a projectile at an opponent: it's like a beep test combined with laying siege to an enemy fort. The rationale is that fast bowling is intensely physical work. Perhaps that paved the way for this final evolution, a radical departure for a country whose entire CV of fast-bowling captains consists of Ray Lindwall filling in for one Test in India in 1956.īut why shouldn't fast bowlers be captain? Why should the job be limited to half the cricketing population, like the days of gentlemen versus professionals where some lord or other would always be given the gig because he was already skilled at ordering around the people who did all the work? Giving the job to Paine, a wicketkeeper, was big change for Australia, but in a time of crisis convention was no longer tenable. That wasn't exactly the process in 2018, when Steve Smith was banned after the sandpaper business. Other countries have at times been able to pick entire teams from the ranks of former skippers, flipping the job around like a hot potato, but Australian captains were supposed to take it on for a certain number of years before handing it on in an orderly and dignified procession. Ricky Ponting agonised about continuing as a player after giving up the leadership, because Australian captains weren't supposed to do that either.
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If they know how to score runs, they know how to lead teams, apparently. It is unheard of in Australia where most things in cricket are treated with the utmost conventionality, and captaincy more than any.Įver since leg-spinning all-rounder Richie Benaud finally buttoned up his shirt and departed in 1964, the job has been assumed to belong by divine right to the side's best specialist bat. As much as no-one was expecting him to take over right now, given the blindside of Tim Paine's apologetic resignation in what can at best be called less-than-ideal circumstances, Cummins being next in line has been on the cards for some time.Ī captain who takes the new ball is quite the concept.
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