Axe David Warner for Old Trafford? It would be like the Huns dropping Attila

Australia has ten days to decide David Warner’s future, writes Gideon Haigh. Picture: AFP

In the last week, Pat Cummins and Ben Stokes have been seen in the variety of guises that Test captains must sometimes otherwise assume: figureheads, advocates, ambassadors, even philosophers, publicly comparing notes about rightful stances on laws, spirits and points between.

Irrespective of one’s opinion on the matter, both have made good impressions. Cummins has managed not to sound prickly and defensive; Stokes has come off as neither preachy nor pious. Neither has shifted position; both have kept their heads, when all about them have been positively ripping theirs off.

Yet with the flip of the coin at Headingley would surely have come a sense of relief at swapping words, slippery things, for deeds, susceptible to will and skill. Stokes gained the initial advantage and threw out the first challenge, sending Australia in and seeing them bowled out summarily enough that not only his bowlers but his batters have enjoyed considerably the better conditions here. But on this second day, Cummins helped make the game like the last US election wasn’t: too close to call.

Ben Stokes and Pat Cummins faced plenty of questions in the fallout from the Lord’s Test. Picture: Getty Images

Great interest attended how England would tackle their chase of the visitors’ 263. Some, mainly in Australia, think Bazball already dead; others, mainly in England, think that long may she wave. One suspects that, like Kenny in South Park, it will always be being killed off, only to be either updated (New Improved Bazball, Now With Added Golf), or revisited (Bazball Classique, Original Formula).

Before lunch yesterday, however, confusion seemed to reign. England played as though Bazball was a once-familiar tune they could not quite recall, interspersing long periods of passivity with shots of seeming casualness: a compulsive glide from Joe Root, a listless drive from Jonny Bairstow, wafty hooks from Moeen Ali and Chris Woakes.

After lunch, Wood and Broad had a thrash, but without Stokes, as at Headingley four years ago, there would have been little worth speaking of.

The toll of the intervening years was there for all to see. In that magical Test match, Stokes ploughed through 24 back-breaking overs, before executing perhaps cricket’s greatest momentum shift: having eked three singles out of 73 balls, he gouged 132 runs from the next 146.

Now Stokes can bowl only in emergencies, and his mighty oaken strength is plagued by burrs and burls. On 10, he should be rights have been lbw to Boland, only to survive an umpire’s call. On 45, his miscue fell luckily into open space just short of the approaching Starc. Later, Stokes was visibly discomfited by what was probably a painful right glute, and thrice sank to his knees when Starc hit him on the upper part of the thigh; the last time he genuflected over his bat like a knight taking a vow in Camelot.

Still, who could not be inspired by Stokes’ might and main? Between some gloriously expansive shots he moved round the crease with all the grace of a pirate on his peg. As the innings expired around him, Stokes briefly mauled the Ashes newbie Todd Murphy, taking advantage of the short straight boundaries. Murphy showed willing, however, and Cummins stuck with him, until a vertical mis-hit provided Smith with his fifth catch in the innings. Another stirring innings from Stokes; another examination passed by Murphy and trick won by Cummins.

Otherwise, Cummins chose the day to take his first five-for in England, in his ninth Test here: a strangely belated achievement, but in the context of an attack where the competition for finitude of wickets is intense. He has tended instead to grab important scalps: critically Root, who averages only 22.6 against him, ten times. Now he appeared to transfix his targets. Moeen mishooked luckily into space, then immediately played an identical shot straight to the fielder.

In the later stages, one appreciated the predicament of the fast bowling captain, Cummins standing at the end of his run, sweat pouring off him, trying to work out what to bowl when even as he decided where everyone should stand then. He shifted and shuffled; he waved and beckoned; then he charged in again to his opposite number, who so spectacularly got the better of him four years ago. To stop Stokes at 80 would have felt like a victory, however temporary.

Cummins might have the Indian sign on Root, Broad must have a virtual voodoo doll for Warner, now with seventeen pins. Since Broad started working Warner over from round the wicket, so that his defensive bat closes slightly and his left shoulder comes round, replays have almost needed a deja vu warning. Australia has ten days to decide his future. Could they possibly leave him out for Old Trafford? It would be like the Huns dropping Attila.

Warner’s fate may yet depend on the result here, which by the close was deliriously unclear. Australia’s lead was nearly 100 when Labuschagne and Smith caught the bug of feckless shots, wickets 199 and 200 of Moeen’s protracted, retracted, detracted career.

The wicket that really mattered was Khawaja, who maintained his sang froid even during another blood-and-thunder spell from Mark Wood, during which Bairstow stood closer to the boundary than the stumps. Then – Sod’s Law – he got the finest of nicks to Bairstow off Woakes. As on the first day, Mitchell Marsh and Travis Head formed a protective barrier. But what are the odds that this absorbing Test resolves, as it did in 2019, into a final day duel between Cummins and Stokes?