Quick bowler, fast learner: Pat Cummins delivers a captaincy masterclass

Even in the drabbest days of the Ashes, as Australia went without winning a game for almost a month to finish the tour, teammates and staff remained absolutely unwavering in their belief that Pat Cummins was the only man to lead the national team.

If some privately acknowledged that he sometimes looked to be a beat or two behind the hyperactive tactics of Bazball England, there was also conviction that Cummins, as he has done in all facets of his cricket, would continue to improve in the job.

Australia’s World Cup match-winners Pat Cummins, Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne.Credit: AP

As the head coach Andrew McDonald put it after rain helped to salvage a draw in Manchester that ensured the retention of the urn, leadership in cricket is about far more than tactical decisions, even if it is the most visible part of the gig.

Importantly, McDonald and others felt that Cummins would gain the knack for setting fields and bowling changes with time – it was a skill to be learned, not a trait to be born with.

“What I would say is leadership takes on all different shapes and forms,” McDonald said in response to erroneous reports that Cummins would resign after the Ashes.

“If we’re living and dying in the world of tactics only, then I think it’s fair and reasonable to critique some of the execution and tactics that we implemented. But to go as far as suggesting that the captain resign post-series I think is a bit far-fetched.”

The notion of moving on from Cummins was ridiculous, given unnecessary oxygen by the breathless nature of a news cycle caffeinated by social media. He was already leading the world’s champion Test team.

But merely four months on, Cummins has not only answered all questions about the notion of a fast bowler captain. He has placed a tactical masterclass on his CV to rank with any produced by an Australian captain in the past 50 years. As the world’s batters would attest over the past six years, Cummins tends to be a quick learner.

And what was on display in Ahmedabad were the wondrous outcomes that can be wrought from a team that plays for each other when their leader responds to the loyalty around him by lifting his own game in captaincy terms.

Why do Australia’s players have such deep respect for Cummins? Because he has fought for them on and off the field. The Justin Langer saga was, apart from anything else, about a group of seasoned players electing to press the case that they knew what they needed to perform at their best, and it wasn’t the volatile Langer.

Cummins wanted to create an environment of calmness, learning and also fun. One where players of all types, from the devout Marnus Labuschagne to the knockabout Travis Head, the livewire Glenn Maxwell and the contrarian Adam Zampa, could all complement one another.

“He’s a deeply passionate, respectful, steely, intelligent man,” said one squad mate from India. “Hell bent on learning and getting better, but also wanting to do that in a way that doesn’t sway from who he is as a person and teammate.”

Players and staff admired the stoicism with which Cummins handled the return of his mother Maria’s breast cancer and her final months. In March, he left India with their blessing to be by her side at the end. When Mitchell Marsh’s maternal grandfather Ross was also in his final days during the tournament, Cummins was equally generous in allowing for a trip home even as Australia battled to qualify for the semi-finals.

“I’ve obviously had a really big year,” Cummins said of his family. “I know my family at home is watching, [I] just got a message from Dad saying he’s had a lot of 4am wake-ups,... so he’s as pumped as anything. So yeah, you sacrifice a lot to play for Australia; everyone in the team has, and we’ve spent a lot of this year away, but we do it for these moments.”

When he became Test captain in 2021, Cummins spoke about reading the book Skin In The Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a work of philosophy that suggests the best decisions tend to be made by those truly invested in them. “It is about symmetry, more like having a share of the harm,” Taleb wrote. “Paying a penalty if something goes wrong.”

The former players who lambasted Cummins and the team over Langer’s exit, and whenever there has been a rare bad result since, had no real skin in the game where the current national side was concerned. The risk and reward were all there for Cummins, and in the World Cup final he made a succession of wise calls.

Bowling first despite the dry appearance of the pitch, in the knowledge that batting would get easier in the dewy evening air. Setting a precision field for his opposite number Rohit Sharma, allowing Travis Head the chance to claim a blinding catch.

Rotating his bowlers constantly to stop India’s batters from settling. Using his own bowling at key times to see the back of Shreyas Iyer and then, pivotally, Virat Kohli. Keeping plenty of overs from his frontliners for the death overs to snuff out any chance of an Indian resurgence.

Australia captain Pat Cummins celebrates with coach Andrew McDonald after the first Ashes test.Credit: AP

And bowling slow bouncers to Suryakumar Yadav with a field set virtually behind wicketkeeper Josh Inglis to stop India’s late-innings accelerator from finding his pet scoring zone. These were the decisions of a top-class captain.

But as McDonald asserted in Manchester, leadership is also about seeing the bigger-picture; reading teammates and what makes them tick and what will help them perform.

“We’ve got a lot of experience, and we’ve got many different characters which is great; you want that in a team,” Cummins said. “But everyone buys in. Everyone does what the team needs. Everyone’s there to look after each other. And I think that’s something that’s contributed to a few of our successes over the years.”

Ahead of the 2021-22 Ashes, Cummins’ instinct for what would get the best out of Head, the cutlass-wielding South Australian, was to clear his head of overtly technical thoughts and back the left-hander to hit bowlers off their lines and lengths.

Head, for his part, responded to that environment by making his own technical tweak before the final, dusting off his blueprint from the Test series in India earlier this year to wreak havoc under the lights of Narendra Modi Stadium.

Cummins’ wisdom as a leader had contributed to Head’s flourishing on the best possible stage, just as his commitment to learning and improving was so wonderfully vindicated by a commanding display in the field.

“We made it really clear in the group we were all in on making sure we weren’t the team that stood off today,” Cummins said. “We wanted to take the game on and play the way that got us to the final.”

When Curtly Ambrose destroyed Australia’s batting in the final Test in Perth 30 years ago, the vanquished captain Allan Border ruminated on his capacity for improvement. “I was interested to hear Michael Holding say that Curtly is still learning,” Border offered dryly. “I hope he doesn’t learn too much more.”

Where once it was just opposition batters hoping Cummins did not learn too much more, it is now whole teams and tournaments. Australia’s formidable captain is far from done.

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.