Everything falls new skipper Pat Cummins’ way

It wasn’t a bad start for Pat Cummins’s captaincy — it was a brilliant one.

Pat Cummins shows the ball to the crowd after his five-wicket haul at the Gabba

It wasn’t a bad start for Pat Cummins’s captaincy — it was a brilliant one.

A five wicket haul. A toss that in not going your way did. Every catch held. England out for 147 before tea. A final session lost to rain, which would have been just what your openers wanted. An allrounder got his first wicket. A new wicketkeeper his first catch.

David Warner and Marcus Harris sat in the dressing rooms for the last two hours of scheduled play willing the rain to persist. It did and that was the sort of day the Australians were having.

Two celebrations summed up the mood: Mitchell Starc’s after taking a ball with the first delivery of the series, the second from the side as it wrapped its arms around Cummins to celebrate his fifth wicket and the final wicket of the England innings.

The England dressing rooms were a sombre place, but a glimpse of the Australians in the sheds showed Cummins and Steve Smith munching biscuits and poring over what looked like a crossword.

Cummins said later that Starc’s delivery was the “new memory” that would replace Steve Harmison’s infamous first ball of the 2006-07 series, but local fans wouldn’t mind cherishing both moments.

The Australian captain lost his first toss and it for once genuinely was a good toss to lose. Cummins would have had to send England in. The accepted wisdom is that no matter how grey overhead or how green below foot, you bat at Brisbane. As the first seam bowler to skipper Australia since the middle of last century, it was going to be awkward if the choice was his.

England captain Joe Root too was hogtied by expectation (and possibly selection). To not bat would have signalled he was as concerned about his top order as most judges.

Ricky Ponting wondered aloud if Root would have made a different call if James Anderson and Stuart Broad were in his team.

Surely the last thing Warner would have wanted to see was his nemesis Broad at the top of his mark first thing in the morning.

Broad and Anderson may have 1100 wickets and 300 Tests between them but they’re not doing you much good when they’re not in the XI.

Cummins confirmed at the toss that they would have batted anyway, but set the field and threw the ball to Starc for the first delivery of the 2021-22 Ashes.

If you don’t know what happened you haven’t been paying attention, but even if you were it was hard to comprehend.

Starc’s delivery started too full and wide of leg stump but at the last moment curled in behind Rory Burns’s legs and bowled the English opener for a golden duck.

Burns, who was looking for a ball outside off, got himself into a terrible tangle and looked as bamboozled as Mike Gatting on being bowled by Shane Warne in 1996.

Warne himself seemed more frustrated than Burns. The leg-spinner has spent years talking Starc down and did not think he should play this match. He was adamant it was not a good delivery and he might have had a point, but the scorebook will show that Starc is only the second person in history to take a wicket with the first ball of an Ashes series.

“I’ve been hearing it for 10 years, it’s nothing new,” Starc said on the Seven Network of the criticism.

“It must be the first of December when that starts happening.

“You could say I carried on because I probably did. That’s Ashes cricket isn’t it, it’s the heightened sense of everything … there was a fair few emotions going around.

“It’s no secret the way I go about my bowling is to be attacking, aim for those stumps. That’s part of how I bowl and it was nice to see it come off.”

Starc is a nose and toes man in length and effectiveness. He cuts teams off at the top and the tail. He leaves the belly for his teammates. This was the 13th time he has taken a wicket in the first over of a Test. He’s done it 19 times in ODIs.

Josh Hazlewood shared the new ball and the spoils, catching the edge of Dawid Malan’s bat in the fourth over.

Cummins made the bold callto take Starc off after just two overs because England’s captain coming to the crease. The Australian has a great record against Root. The contest was on: captain to captain, number one bowler to number one batter.

Cummins needn’t have bothered, Hazlewood was happy to do the job for the fast-bowling cartel’s captain.

How easy is this, the 47th captain must have been thinking as he got one to lift on Ben Stokes and looked up to see England 4-29 before lunch and then all out before tea.