Old habits die hard for this Australian touring team, whose struggles in the Ashes series were replicated here against the most unheralded of county attacks.
Just as in the recent Test defeats at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge, the tourists’ top order displayed their vulnerability when confronted by the moving ball to give a quartet of pace bowlers – whose combined tally of first-class victims this season stood at 30 before this match – their day in the sun. For the majority of it, their efforts retained prospects of Australia being asked to follow on by county opposition for the first time in 22 years.
Not since Sir Ian Botham’s first-class farewell for Durham at the Racecourse Ground in 1993 has an Australian touring team suffered that ignominy but it took a career-best from their No9 Pat Cummins, who more than doubled his previous haul of first-class runs with an unbeaten 82, and 41 from Nathan Lyon, who joined his partner at 180 for eight, to avoid it.
The last man, Fawad Ahmed, was at the crease when a Cummins single at 5.11pm took them to within 99 runs of their hosts – with the opening day washed out the follow-on margin was reduced to 100 as per first-class playing regulations – whose intensity dropped midway through the afternoon session. It was then, soon after Cummins had been put down from a regulation chance to Josh Cobb at slip second ball, that Northamptonshire introduced the part-time spinners Rob Keogh and Saif Zaib.
In just the second full over of the morning, after resuming on 13 for one, the Australians lost their newly appointed Test captain, Steve Smith, to an outside edge after Maurice Chambers, trying to earn a stay beyond next month when his contract runs out, squared him up.
Then a smart catch from Keogh at third slip provided Richard Gleeson, a rangy club bowler, with a maiden first-class scalp. Northamptonshire’s director of cricket, David Ripley, had never seen the 27-year-old bowl before but pitched him into this match on the back of a recent six-wicket haul for the club’s second XI and strong recommendations from his staff. The previous weekend, Gleeson bagged figures of seven for 89 in a Northern League fixture between Blackpool and Lancaster.
Steven Crook, the former Australia academy player, followed his hundred by striking first ball when Adam Voges chased one outside off and Ben Sanderson, who came through Yorkshire’s age group sides with Joe Root and is on a pay-as-you-play deal at Wantage Road, put his name to the now obligatory leg before departure for Shane Watson.
Then, when Crook swung one past Peter Nevill’s outside edge to tumble off stump and had Peter Siddle caught at cover either side of Gleeson accounting for both Marsh brothers – Mitchell chopping on for a composed 68 – the innings was sent into decline once more.
Cummins ensured it was not terminal with an array of powerful strokes and was only denied his shot at a hundred by Smith’s declaration, aimed at an early departure to London, where the Ashes concludes this week. “They already had one foot on the bus, so I didn’t argue,” Cummins said.
It was for his three wickets with the ball on Saturday, however, that Australia are considering handing the 22-year-old his second cap. Remarkably, due to an injury-punctuated start to his career, this was only his fourth first-class outing since making his Test debut in November 2011 but he insisted he is ready for the workloads expected in the traditional form of the game.
“Firstly I love being over here, along for the ride and ready in case a game comes along. That will be a bonus but I will be ready to go,” Cummins said. “It probably felt like the best I had bowled in a long time; I really enjoyed easing into spells; getting back into the nuances of first-class cricket; trying to work out how to get consistent swing and use the bouncer.”
Meanwhile, with the left-arm spinner Graeme White currently sidelined with a side strain, Northamptonshire have asked Shahid Afridi, one of their Twenty20 imports this summer, to return for finals day on 29 August.
