Pat Cummins was at the crease, Australia’s fate resting on his broad shoulders.

With only two wickets in hand, every ball had been a sliding door opening to victory or defeat.

The first session had been lost to rain but after five days of an enthralling Test full of blows and counterpunches it seemed inevitable there would be a definitive result.

Cummins’ primary trade is bowling of course but his batting had always been sound, ever since Greg Chappell first saw him play and suspected he could develop into a genuine all-rounder. Now he just needed the right ball.

It came. Cummins swung his blade and crunched it for four, snuffing out the hopes of the opposition and the baying crowd. There was the delighted roar and the megawatt smile, a mix of joy and relief in the celebration.

Pat Cummins was 18 years old and had just won his first Test match with a boundary.

He had no idea of what was to come. He was blissfully unaware that he wouldn’t play another Test for six years. Or that he would one day rise to captain Australia and lead them to a World Test Championship title.

Or that, one day, he would secure victory in the first Ashes Test with another boundary.

***

Tests don’t exist in isolation. While five days can seem to occupy an all-encompassing self-contained bubble in time they interconnect with all those other days, weaving a narrative in and out of a tapestry that expands beyond an individual career or even a generation.

The threads shimmer in and out of focus, ghosts from the past, both recent and far away. There were many such phantoms at Edgbaston throughout the first Ashes Test. Their presence was felt before the game; the spectres from 2005 in their natural resting place jostling with the 2019 spirits from further north at Headingley. There, the man who would eventually captain England batted with a spinner before claiming a glorious victory with a boundary off the man who would eventually captain Australia and return the favour.

Young and old ghosts all joined in the haunting. It was Cummins who bowled the first ball of this magnificent contest and saw it spanked for four by a dismissive Zak Crawley. Before Cummins hit the winning runs against South Africa on his debut, cameras showed a visibly nervous Nathan Lyon barely able to watch as he sat, padded up, in the dressing room. 11 years on he was calmly and capably supporting his captain as Australia reeled the target in.

For Cummins there was a more poignant spirit. It was his second Test since the passing of his mother and his thoughts quickly turned to his father and brother, both at Edgbaston to witness his greatest victory.

The echoes swirled around as he ran across the field, pumped his fist and lifted Lyon as easily as a parent hoists a child.

***

For Cummins, this summer is a six-Test tour that will define his legacy. The initial goal was reached at The Oval against India and his team has struck the first blow in an Ashes series that has already produced moments that will reverberate for years to come.

He stayed true to his plans and ethos throughout the five days, refusing to be drawn in by England’s flamboyant aggression. There were rumblings around the defensive fields and the pace of batting; Cummins couldn’t give a fig. While Ben Stokes is on a mission to entertain as well as to win, Cummins believes winning is entertaining enough.

He is calm and measured and uninterested in bold declarations, both on the field and in words off it. He didn’t announce his team in advance and he won’t be drawn into disclosing any game plan; his customary response to a hypothetical question is that his decision would depend on the situation.

[breakout id=”0″][/breakout]

Cummins is very much his own man, as they say. He was the boy wonder who could do no wrong until he found himself mired in the culture wars. Perfect Pat became Captain Woke in some circles of the Australian public. He was scorned for his advocacy of environmental causes or willingness to lead his team in taking the knee or participating in a pre-match ritual to acknowledge First Nations people. He sparked the ire of former players and the entire state of Western Australia, who blamed him for the messy exit of Justin Langer as coach.

He stuck to his guns, dismissing those who criticised his support for causes that align with his values and sent a firm message to former players that, just as they were sticking up for a mate, he was championing his teammates.

***

Cummins is a player who reliably lifts when the occasion requires. No longer the fragile kid with delicious potential, his durability since overcoming six years of accumulated injury has been remarkable. He was the only Australian bowler to play every Test of the 2019 series and he intends to play all six on this tour; it would be a brave person who bets against him on this.

While he went wicketless in the first innings he collected four in the third on a pitch that offered him little assistance. It tugged on another memory thread; Cummins bowling with heart and ferocity on a lifeless deck in Lahore on the final day of Australia’s series against Pakistan last year. He took three wickets, including the last, to secure a one-nil series victory.

But at Edgbaston victory came another way.

Pat Cummins was at the crease, Australia’s fate resting on his broad shoulders.

With only two wickets in hand, every ball had been a sliding door opening to victory or defeat.

This time it was Ollie Robinson bowling, the man who had cast doubt on the batting capability of Australia’s tail.

And this time it was a steer to the deep third boundary rather than a flay through mid-wicket, assisted to the rope by a misfield.

But the jubilation and the megawatt smile was a carbon-copy, if a little more wizened. At the Wanderers, Cummins had hit the winning runs in the best Test he’d ever played in.

At Edgbaston he did the same in the best Test he has ever played in; another strand that will dissolve and rise to join all the other ghosts of Ashes past.