Pat Cummins had been waiting a long time for this. Across the Ashes series, at Lord’s and Headingley and Old Trafford, he had kept losing tosses, being asked to bat, and saying that he would have bowled first if given the chance. Perhaps luck spared him three mistakes: Australia made 416 at Lord’s and won, and in the other matches had plenty of partnerships without making the most of them in decent batting conditions.
In the fifth Test at the Oval he finally got his way. You could see the arguments in favour: cloudy day, tinge of green in the pitch, the chance to take control of the match. But it was also heart-in-mouth for Australian supporters, like any bowl-first decision tends to be. It was the same fixture four years earlier when Tim Paine made the same decision, losing the match and tying the series 2-2. Or go back a few weeks, when India asked Australia to bat first before losing by a mile.
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In recent years, though, the Oval has become a bowl-first ground. Up until around the time of the pandemic the pitches tended to be moribund and draws abounded, to the point that the ground’s custodians dug it up and relaid the entire square.
In county cricket Surrey won the title last year and are on track to do the same this time around, their success here based on bowling first. They don’t really pick a spinner, only the offerings of Will Jacks who can bat top six.
What used to be a draw ground became a win ground, the results about seam movement and exploiting early conditions before it settles. Day two becomes the best day to bat. Whether Cummins was doing deep analytics with the Surrey ultras, or whether he just really likes the idea of bowling, you’ll have to ask him.
After England’s bullish openers had piled on 62 inside the first dozen overs it might have been a terrible mistake. But both players fell after a good review urged by Alex Carey coupled with an excellent spell from Cummins, and Josh Hazlewood used seam movement to draw an error from Joe Root. Three wickets fell for 11.
Thus came the other gamble that worked: picking Mitchell Starc in the team. It was during Australia’s terrible day in the field in Manchester that Starc landed heavily on the point of his bowling shoulder, having already hurt it in an earlier dive. The injury looked bad at the time, and his return to bowl the following day looked like a desperate last gasp to contribute to the series on his way out.
It was a surprise that he was ruled fit to play the fifth match with such a short break after the fourth, and more of a surprise that selectors were ready to risk him with the sort of injury that could easily be freshly worsened. That moment looked to have come in the second session, when a long throw from the deep left Starc clutching the shoulder. He left the field with that arm hanging limply in that way that alwayssignals trouble.
Yet after lunch, there he was again, freshly strapped up, not just bowling but delivering an all-time swinging impossibility that took out England captain Ben Stokes: off stump gone, leg and middle stumps still standing with the bail attached. Starc has built quite a collection of these to Stokes over the years, across formats, those moments when his opponent looks back at the stumps and tries to trace the chain of events back to its beginning.
Coming back after tea, Starc blasted through to smash Chris Woakes on the pad but was denied by a sliver of inside edge, then had a catch burst through the hands of Mitchell Marsh at gully. Stuart Broad edged another over backward point before smashing one up the chimney for Travis Head to take a catch. Another lbw was not given out that would have clipped leg stump before Woakes hooked another catch to Head.
Starc finished with four for 82, and a player who was once criticised by certain commentators for not appearing tough enough on the field had again bowled through serious discomfort to fine effect. In Melbourne last December he snapped a tendon in his index finger while trying to take a catch, and bowled through while switching to using his middle finger to direct the ball.
Touring India earlier this year, the same finger remained a problem and he spent time between overs at fine leg staunching blood from the smashed nail on the pocket of his whites.
He has come through a laundry list of injuries in his earlier career to become one of Australia’s most durable options well into his 30s, and even this week when he probably should have been sitting out he found a way to make his presence known.
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