Cummins, Lyon and the inscrutable circle of life

So near yet so far in Headingley but four years on, they have mattered and how

If there was ever a day to believe in the circle of life, this was it. Nothing seemed impossible for Ben Stokes, till he couldn’t hold on to what would have been a sensational—and not his first—one-handed catch, of Nathan Lyon. Four years ago at Headingley, in the greatest ever Test since 2001 Eden, Lyon ended up on the wrong side of history when he fumbled a simple run out of Jack Leach. And no one was more expensive than Pat Cummins, who, incidentally, also conceded the winning boundary to Stokes. With those memories swirling in the back of the head, accentuated several notches by Ollie Robinson’s ‘three No 11s jibe’ at the Australian lower order, what would you call what went down at Edgbaston? Randomness of luck? Or the barest of margins playing favourites?

Australia's Pat Cummins reacts as he leaves the pitch(AFP)

Athletes are trained to not look back. But they do nevertheless. "I would be lying if I said it didn't (cross my mind)," said Cummins on Tuesday when asked about that Headingley defeat. "We were on the other side of one in the last series here. When you're on the other side it feels like one that's got away and it really hurts. A lot of those guys were there at Headingley and to clinch one that was perhaps out of our grasp for a little while there is pretty satisfying." Stokes too couldn’t help but marvel at how ‘the world comes around’. “Going back to Headingley with Gaz (Lyon) dropping the ball over the stumps. It’s amazing how the world comes around. I drop that catch and he’s not out at the end. It’s mad how things go around, isn’t it?”

It’s more complicated than just that, of course. Eras would have been redefined had Lyon not squandered that run-out at Headingley. This Ashes would have been business as usual for England had Stokes caught Lyon. The biggest consequence of that Headingley Test, and that Ashes series in a larger context, was how both teams shaped up in the next few years—England stepping up to embrace a do-or-die attitude and Australia ultimately turning to a fast bowler for an unprecedented full-time captaincy. That the same man finally put the brakes on England’s juggernaut has a much wider implication—you need not play only one brand of cricket to keep the excitement going. The world goaded Australia to play England’s way. But Cummins relented. “Win or lose, we are pretty comfortable with how we go about it," said Cummins. "We've been really good for the last 20 Tests. We are at our best when we play at our own pace.”

Cummins isn’t the run-of-the-mill Aussie captain. Calm, assured, dignified, he was everything Australia needed in their new captain while venturing in a vastly different world post the ball-tampering scandal and Tim Paine’s unceremonious step-down to avert a sexting scandal. When former players minced no words over the acrimonious exit of Justin Langer as head coach, Cummins was almost statesman-like in ‘sticking up’ for his mates. Even more incredible is that work ethic that helped Cummins throw down 110 overs on shirtfront pitches in the blistering heat of Pakistan, and wrest a humdinger in Lahore. Edgbaston too witnessed that industrious side of Cummins in the second innings where the Australia captain and Lyon combined to bowl 42 out of 66 overs, sharing eight wickets, and more crucially restricting England to 273, a total Cummins wholeheartedly felt was gettable.

Nine times out of 10 would a team fold quickly after being reduced to 229/8. But what Cummins, who averaged a shade under 16 before this Ashes, achieved from that point puts him right up there with all the great all-round contemporaries. Resilience mattered. Also the awareness of the trickle-down effect every hard-earned run was having on a nervous England. But absolutely off the hook was Cummins’s planned assault of Root. Two sixes off him and the target was watered down to 40. A four off Stuart Broad and suddenly, Australia needed only 30.

At the other end, Lyon was more than surviving but it wasn’t pretty. Not thinking like a tailender helps in such situations but Cummins insisted they had trained for every eventuality. "Nath puts a lot of time into his batting,” he said. “We all have pretty strong plans.” Even if Lyon scored a duck he had already played his part with a match haul of 8-229. But life sometimes tends to find the best of occasions to come full circle. In his 99th consecutive Test, just five short of 500 Test wickets, Lyon realised that when England were ultimately made to rue a dropped catch off his bat.

It would have been a scintillating catch had Stokes held on to it, and almost undoubtedly more memorable than his one-handed grab of Andile Phehlukwayo in the 2019 World Cup opener against South Africa. But it wasn’t to be, leaving Stokes mulling what could have been. “God. I’m reliving it in my head now. The ball was in my hand, just didn’t manage to make it stick. One of those shoulda, coulda, woulda moments,” said Stokes. “Would have been a good catch, though, wouldn’t it?”