It’s hard to know what to make of it. Australia beating Sri Lanka in a Test match at the Gabba is exactly as the world should be: it’s the sane, expected, nine-to-five punchcard side of life. Even if the hours were one to eight as per the demands of a day-night match. But the unexpected has become the norm in Australian cricket over the past year, so an upset was never out of the frame. For this team, there is something to be said for making manifest the predictable.
In the end Sri Lanka’s batting handed Australia an easy win, out for under 150 in both innings. A better showing could have put pressure on Australia’s batsmen though. They mustered 323 against a Sri Lankan attack that dwindled through injury from three seamers to two, then one. Yet Suranga Lakmal was wily and indefatigable, using the pink ball and the evening conditions to winkle out 5 for 75 and prevent a big score.
The partnership of 166 between Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne was the most valuable aspect for Australia, with Labuschagne the most controlled in the team on his home ground. Head keeps showing he has raw materials worth working with, but again got away with repeated looseness. Both fell in the 80s, continuing Australia’s century drought – the team has made one hundred in over a year.
Better news came on the bowling front. Patrick Cummins has shown more leadership than anyone since the team fell apart in Cape Town in March 2018. He and Tim Paine were the only ones who showed up ready to compete at Test level when a broken side played in Johannesburg a week later. He never stopped putting in while India got on top during this home season. When conditions are hard, Cummins is the one who produces extra effort and tries to find a way, including his secondary disciplines of batting and fielding.
After Johannesburg, South African captain Faf du Plessis gave this glowing review. “He’s an exceptional player. We would sit on the side of the field and just admire what he does. We’d say, ‘Look at the guy, he’s still running in and bowling quick.’ Diving at balls when he’s just finished an eight-over spell, runs in the series. As a batter I definitely felt he was the biggest challenge. He’s a nice guy, Pat. You enjoy it when nice guys do well, even opposition, the good people of the game.”
All this was recognised in Brisbane this week when Cummins was named vice-captain. And for once, conditions were with him. His over on the second evening was a masterpiece. Knowing he had six deliveries left, he worked over Sri Lankan opener Dimuth Karunaratne, around the wicket to the left-hander to angle the ball in, then take it away, teasing the decision-making about playing or leaving. Finally, with the last ball of the night, Cummins hit an in-between line and drew Karunaratne’s edge. A celebration more impassioned than any for a television ad was proof of Cummins’ satisfaction in realising his plan.
He took another wicket in each of his first two overs the next day, and at one stage had figures of 4 for 9. That ended up as 6 for 23, his best in an innings, after a day of relentlessly hitting the seam and a length that tested the batsmen, drawing them forward but striking high on the bat to take edges into the cordon.
Added to four wickets from the first innings, that made 10 in the match for Cummins. The last time an Australian fast bowler did this at home was over a decade ago: December 2008, when Mitchell Johnson smashed through South Africa with 8-61 in their first innings, only to see them chase 414 in their second.
There have been a few 10-wicket matches overseas: Johnson in South Africa and New Zealand, Mitchell Starc in Sri Lanka, and for the spinners, Nathan Lyon in Bangladesh and Steve O’Keefe in India. But Lyon in Adelaide in 2014 is the only 10-for by a home bowler in that time. Not even through Johnson’s Ashes of 2013-14, when his best was nine.
It’s hard to pin down why. Australia have lost a few significant series in that time, which puts a dent in the wickets column. But there have been plenty of one-sided wins that must have involved bowlers sharing the spoils.
What Cummins has now shown is the ability to get on a roll. There have been times this summer when he’s looked excellent without results. To know he can crash through a side is significant. So is the work of his fast-bowling colleague Jhye Richardson, who hit a similarly disciplined length on debut while swinging the ball at pace. It marked an encouraging week for Australia’s bowling prospects in England this year.
Mitchell Starc is the big unanswered question, after a season in which he has never been at his best. Starc sent down what looked like his fastest spell of the summer on the final day in Brisbane, nudging the speedometer to 150 kilometres an hour, but it was defused with little fuss by Dilruwan Perera, an off-spinning all-rounder batting at eight in a lost cause who had already had his thumb pulverised by Cummins in the first dig.
But before Starc can worry about his Test form, he has to get right for a one-day World Cup after being the dominant factor in Australia’s run to the trophy in 2015. Starc with the white ball of late hasn’t looked much better than with the red, and rectifying that is key to Australia’s hopes of competing. In a year moving in fast forward, a couple of games against Sri Lanka in conditions alien to them can only tell you so much.
