Steve Smith, Pat Cummins Ashes tension revealed in The Test documentary
In the heat of Australia’s fierce Ashes clash last year, deep divisions arose between two of the side’s most influential figures.
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Australia may have drawn last year’s Ashes series to retain the urn, but a fresh documentary has unearthed some deep divisions that surfaced among the Aussie ranks during the six-week campaign.
It particularly revealed itself around the fourth Test at Old Trafford, when the Aussies were smashed to all parts before rain allowed them to steal a draw that proved pivotal in the series.
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England’s feted Bazball was in full swing in that match, with the home side smashing 592 in its first dig in reply to Australia’s 317, and that one-sided contest resulted in some real tension among the touring side.
That was particularly the case between skipper Pat Cummins and vice-captain Steve Smith, while the likes of Marnus Labuschagne and Josh Hazlewood also became entangled in some clear differences of opinions.
It has all been revealed in the latest series of Amazon Prime Video’s third instalment of the cricket documentary, The Test, which for the first time has shown intimate details of that infamous series.
After Australia won the opening two Tests to take a stranglehold on the five-Test contest, England responded with a narrow three-wicket victory in the third clash at Headingley, an opportunity the Aussies felt they had squandered.
An accusation of “poor captaincy” was directed at Cummins after that defeat and the loss clearly led to some splinters among the playing group over their tactics heading into the fourth Test in Manchester.
“Headingley was a chaotic Test match and chaos suited England,” journalist Gideon Haigh stated in the documentary.
“Australia kind of lost touch with their battle plan in those circumstances.”
Head coach Andrew McDonald agreed with that sentiment, saying on the eve of the fourth Test: “I think we’re getting caught up in the pace that they want to play at.
“It’s been frantic.
“They’re flying in directions we haven’t encountered before, so new information probably stimulates people to the point where you go, ‘what do we do now, what do we do now?’.”
That’s where Cummins gave an indication that all was not well in the Australian ranks.
“I think ‘Smudge’ (Smith), that’s involved the fielders as well,” the skipper said to the former captain.
“It’s like, even if everyone doesn’t completely agree, just buy in for that little passage.
“We can talk about different plans, but whatever we commit to for that little bit, we just all buy in and give it a crack.”
After the Aussies were bowled out early on day two, England went berserk, unleashing the fast-scoring Bazball they had become known for under coach Brendon McCullum and England captain Ben Stokes.
Led by opener Zak Crawley’s 189, aided by an unbeaten 99 from Jonny Bairstow and half-centuries to Joe Root, Moeen Ali, Harry Brook and Stokes, the flailing Australian side was bereft of answers.
“It was like this tsunami and there was nowhere safe to bowl,” Haigh said.
“Everything was happening so quickly and they were scoring so fast and it was getting away from us,” Smith added.
“We were probably just slightly off planning, slightly off execution, and those two combined, you’re going to get hurt.”
Back in the dressing room, Smith was trying to get his thoughts across as the side struggled to make any breakthroughs with the ball.
“Can you go like a one-day field?” he suggested. “Slip, backward point, third man deep, just a bit more of a traditional one-day field.”
McDonald responded with: “We’ve got to get a breakthrough, there’s no doubt about that. But we can’t let the scoreboard run and that’s a fine balance.”
Cummins is shown next, flashing a wry smile as he said: “It can get busy out there on the field. Never really short of ideas.”
Josh Hazlewood, who bowled 27 overs in that first England innings and finished with 5/126, showed his frustration at the constant tactical discussion among the side.
“There’s a few ideas floating around,” he said. “They pretty much go directly to (Cummins), which I guess can wear thin sometimes.
“The rest of the guys, feel free to have a bowl if you want.
“It’s not easy.”
It led former England captain and current commentator Nasser Hussein to make a damning statement about the leadership out on the Old Trafford pitch.
“Often when you look down at an Australian side historically, you know who the captain is, whether it be (Mark) Taylor, (Allan) Border, (Ricky) Ponting, (Steve) Waugh,” Hussein said.
“You look down today and there’s been a lot of cricketers waving their arms around.”
The following exchange in the doco then demonstrated more of the tension and disagreements as Cummins tried to lead and others attempted to voice their thoughts on the increasingly hopeless situation.
“Marnus (Labuschagne) always has ideas, Smithy’s always waving his arms around at first slip,” Cummins said.
“I offer advice all the time,” Smith added. “It’s just whether we want to use it and that’s up to the captain to make that decision ultimately.”
“Creatively I think we could have just tried more things,” Labuschagne offered.
“Tried different stuff for different times and if it didn’t work, I don’t think we were worse off than we would’ve been.
“(We could’ve tried) changing it up, setting a really obscure field or doing something really different.
“It’s hard, I can give you my own views of what I would’ve done, but … enough said.”
With Australia facing almost certain defeat, the England weather intervened and allowed the tourists to snatch a draw and head to the fifth Test still holding a 2-1 lead.
It also meant they had retained the Ashes with one game remaining, regardless of the result of that final match.
The talk still continued at full pace among the squad about the hammering that had just been handed to them and how they could better approach the finale, with a chance still on offer to win a series in England for the first time since 2001.
Prior to the team meeting before the fifth Test at The Oval in London, Cummins said: “I felt like that was time to get together, say anything that needs to be said, and then just be all focused in on that last Test.”
McDonald then opened the meeting by stating: “Just want to have an open discussion around, are we committed to what we set out to achieve, do we need to pivot going into this last game or what does it look like for us?”
The team’s sports psychologist Brent Membery then brought up some points about whether the team was “calm and connected”.
“When I think of calmness, I think of clear thinking,” Cummins replied.
“And I reckon I wasn’t at my best last game.
“That’s definitely something I’ve got to try to improve for this game.”
Wicketkeeper Alex Carey then asked the captain how he felt about the number of messages coming to him on the field.
“In terms of out there (on the field), I think it does get busy at times,” Cummins said.
“Unless something’s really big that we need to shift, I’d like to just give that plan a decent chance.
“Just trust that the bowlers are just really well planned.
“And I think the big one that I need from everyone as well is whichever way we go, whichever decision is made, we buy in and we just go for it.
“Just trust your teammates at all times.”
In the end, England won the final Test by 49 runs to draw the series 2-2.
In the lead-up, Brook had stated an England win would result in a “moral victory” after the fourth Test wash out, in comments that have been widely derided by the Aussie team and countless Australian fans.
Despite the clear tension along the way, the Aussies did enough to keep hold of the famous urn, with the next series scheduled for the summer of 2025 in Australia.
– The Test Season 3 was released on Prime Video on May 24
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