Pat Cummins saved Australia, not with the ball but with the bat, shepherding them to a thrilling victory over England in the first Test match of Ashes 2023, at Edgbaston. In the process, he and his partner-in-crime Nathan Lyon created several records.
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Between two boundaries involving Pat Cummins, Edgbaston played out an all-time Ashes classic, with Australia’s strikingly anti-Bazball methods triumphing over the razzmatazz of England’s approach.
The game ebbed and flowed over the course of five days, with even rain playing a handy cameo that only heightened the intensity of the contest as it approached a nail-biting conclusion.
Usman Khawaja was leading Australia’s charge towards the finish line and resisting England’s, but when he fell for 65 off a Ben Stokes leg-cutter with Australia still needing 72 for victory, it looked like things would fold quickly.
Alex Carey soon hit one back to Joe Root, England’s seventh-choice bowler, and it was down to Cummins and Lyon to score 54 in around a hundred balls.
Heading into this game, Cummins had not scored 35 or more in a Test innings since the 2018 Boxing Day Test against India. While he had been playing white-ball cameos lower down the order, including a scarcely believable 14-ball 50 in the IPL, his Test batting returns had fallen.
It did not help that Australia dropped Mitchell Starc, who had recently scored 46 runs in the World Test Championship final against India. This had prompted Ollie Robinson to quip that once they get past Cummins, it would be “three No.11s” to get rid of.
The odds were stacked heavily against Cummins and Australia. And yet, he prevailed.
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England probably erred in handing Root an over too many. Cummins made them pay, hitting two sixes to bring the equation down from a distant-looking 51 to a very much in-sight 37. He had also hit three sixes en route to 38 in the first innings – his first score in excess of 35 in Tests since December 2018. This took his tally of sixes to five in this Test, the most he has ever hit in a match in this format.
Lyon provided him with able company at the other end, rotating strike over, defending good balls, and having a go at anything short. As the runs ticked by, the screws visibly started coming apart for England.
The killer blow was Lyon’s picturesque lofted on-drive over mid-on, a shot any top-order batter would be proud of (and would hardly dare to attempt in a Test match). With three required, Cummins steered a back-of-length ball towards third man to officially bury the ghosts of Edgbaston 2005 once and for all.
He finished with 44 not out – the highest score by a batter batting at No.9 or lower in a successful fourth-innings run-chase in Test history, bettering R Ashwin’s 42 not out last year against Bangladesh.
Cummins was the bowler who was “cut away, cut away for four” by Ben Stokes at Headingley in 2019. Stokes had registered an unbeaten 76-run 10th-wicket partnership with Jack Leach then. Four years down the line, Cummins registered his own name in that list as his unbeaten 55-run partnership with Lyon became the seventh-highest ninth-wicket-or-lower partnership in successful run-chases in Test matches, and the second-highest in Test matches away from home.
While there have been several instances of a batter taking his team to victory in a tense run chase with the support of his bowlers in Tests, this partnership was unique in the sense that neither Cummins nor Lyon was a proper batter.
They combined to score 60 in the fourth innings, which turned out to be the fourth-highest aggregate by the Nos. 9, 10, and 11 of a team in a successful run-chase in Tests, and the highest in the 21st century.
Whether England revisit their “three No.11s” belief or not with regards to the Australian tail will have to be seen. For now, Cummins & co. can bask in the glory of what they have achieved till the second Test comes along.
