Cape Town 2018, cultural review; Cape Town 2026, structural review?
Eight years after the ball-tampering scandal prompted a cultural reckoning, Australia's latest humiliation in South Africa has raised fresh questions over its Test set-up, leadership group and succession planning
There was a sardonic roar that echoed around Newlands on Saturday afternoon as Pat Cummins got off the mark. It didn’t come courtesy the thousands of Australian fans who’d made the long trip to Cape Town. It was instead the South African fans who were showing their mock appreciation for the Australian captain scoring his first run. It had come off the 41st delivery that Cummins had faced in Australia’s run-chase on a dramatic final day of the series.
It was also part of probably one of the grimmest hours for an Australian Test team in a long time. And the Newlands crowd was revelling in their humiliation.
The visitors were hanging on grimly. So was Cummins, hanging on like the captain of a sinking ship with safety nowhere in sight. His fate along with that of his teammates had been sealed by then. Most of them had come and gone at short notice.
The Test had been lost a few hours earlier anyway. Kagiso Rabada had punctured the heart out of whatever hopes Australia had of chasing down 288 on the final day within the first over of the innings with a double blow before burying its soul in his third by knocking over Travis Head. All that remained now was the team’s dignity in the face of an ignominious defeat. By the end, Australia had lost that too. Along with the Test series, their No. 1 position in the rankings which they held on to for a few years now, and their confirmed spot for the World Test Championship final. They had also lost themselves amidst all that.
This wasn’t the first embarrassing collapse in South Africa. Only a week ago, they’d been blown away for 99 in their first innings in Gqeberha that led to the innings defeat. That felt more like a perfect storm. One triggered by a fired-up Rabada with his colleagues rallying around their talisman. What played out at Newlands on Saturday was a lot more painful.
It didn’t come with the shock and awe of St George’s Park where it was over before you could blink. The fact that it lingered on as Cummins and Cameron Green — followed a bit later by Nathan Lyon — clung on for dear life allowed for more time for the infamy to sink in.
And for more questions to emerge around the immediate future of this Australian Test team, who after a heady few years have now lost 3 out of their 5 matches in comprehensive fashion.
If Cape Town 2018 ended up triggering a cultural review of Australian cricket, could Cape Town 2026 call for a structural review? For, how much longer can the current leadership group keep the hard-hitting interrogators of their system at bay. From former greats of Australian cricket to their hardcore fans, especially with the home summer around the corner. And with New Zealand not expected to let up one bit on the Aussies, having been given enough of a blueprint on how to beat them by both Bangladesh and South Africa.
No longer can losing to Bangladesh in Darwin be dismissed as an outlier where a team who hadn’t played a Test in seven months were caught out while they were getting their rhythm back. There were enough hints during that loss which at that point were probably either ignored or passed on without much notice. Starting with Marnus Labuschagne’s extended lean patch. On Saturday, the No. 3’s Test career surely has come to a pause, and it could be an extended one too, after he managed to face all of 8 deliveries across two innings, the least he’s faced in one Test. What about Lyon then, and the fact that the Bangladeshis were able to dominate him on the kind of surface where he’s historically given his team control and penetration.
This is not to say that the veteran off-spinner didn’t have his moments in Cape Town, but it’s only understandable that his performance in the second innings on a surface that had generous rough areas on offer would be under scrutiny after his counterpart, Simon Harmer, looked unplayable on it. But it’s not just Lyon.
Australia are blessed to have a world-class, future hall-of-fame pace attack. And individually it’s safe to say that Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood are still at the peak of their powers. Starc currently has one of the lowest bowling averages of his career and once again finished with the most wickets in this series. Hazlewood is coming off his best figures in his career two Tests back. And Cummins, despite his paltry returns overall where he managed 6 wickets at 54.67 including a 373-ball period where he went without one, was hitting his highest speeds in years during the first Test in Durban.
But there are now enough signs there that their performances do start to dip as a collective as a series wears on, especially when the opposition batters are prepared to play the long game and grind them down. Like the Bangladeshis did in Darwin two months ago. Backed up by Ryan Rickelton and Wiaan Mulder on Day 4 at Newlands. There’s always Scott Boland to fill and have an impact whenever called upon. It’s time though you’d think for there to be a couple of fast bowlers from a generation younger to be brought into the mix and be made a part of the rotation more regularly. It might as a byproduct even help the big three extend their careers so that Australia get full use of their evolving individual brilliance.
If the impressive victory in Durban seemed like the perfect kick-off point for the legacy-defining period ahead of them over the next 8 months, the scenes at Newlands only two weeks later have now changed the view around Cummins’ battle-hardened team. They now look like a team who’s there for the taking, having now been objectively knocked off their perch. India would have been watching and so too the English in the lead-up to next year’s Ashes. And the Kiwis, despite their poor record against their Trans-Tasman neighbours, would now back themselves too to feed off any uncertainties the Aussies might have picked up after the series defeat here. Change doesn’t need to be drastic but surely needs to be imminent.
There will be extreme reactions in the immediate aftermath with heads at the top expected to roll. The selectors in particular will find it hard to defend some of their major calls, led by calling Nic Maddinson over to open the innings. The stubbornness to not move on from Labuschagne being a more longstanding criticism which now looks even more like a long-term investment gone terribly wrong. There will be no quick fix but two massive batting collapses in the space of four innings after having led 1-0 in the series does require a deeper diagnosis. A soothing balm or bandage won’t do anymore.
The world was watching as the Australians began their pursuit of a difficult but achievable target on Saturday morning in Cape Town. This was set to be a grandstand finish to a terrific series full of twists and turns. Perhaps the final twist was that there was no twist in the end.
It instead turned out to be one of Australian Test cricket’s worst horror movies, aptly that too on Halloween.
