Test Surely the Cummins/McDonald captain/coach setup is the worst in Australian Test history

[Gethelred]

Couldn't even captain Australia to a win in the last series against the Windies. Blown multiple away series against England and celebrated draws.

In 2023, Australia went to India, knowing that they'd have a massive 12 months. They'd just played a 5 test summer at home - against the WI and SA, which they'd won 5-0 - and the schedule was absolutely full.

They played a 4 test series against India, starting on the 9/2 and finishing on the 9/3; that's four tests in 28 days. They then played the WTC match in England on the 7th of June, with a 5 match Ashes series beginning on the 16th and ending on the 27th of July; in the final test of the Ashes, England played the 'ball's been whacked out of shape' trick and Joel Wilson took out a ball supposedly the same age as the 40+ over pill they had used that was not moving at all. This new ball didn't just swing, it moved like prime Akram and they stole the final test of the series, drawing the thing. You then had the ODI world cup in India - which we won - and in that summer, we played five tests; three against Pakistan and two against the WI before a break.

These matches used more or less the same group of around 14-15 players, and towards the end they got tired. It showed in their cricket more or less all summer; the players were professionals and played some pretty clinical cricket, but they were just burnt out.

In that final test - the test after we smashed them by 10 wickets - Shamar Joseph walked off the ground on day 3 with a toe injury that was thought to be potentially the end of his tour. He returned to the ground the next day and bowled faster than he ever had and ever has since. He's bowling 125-130 clicks now, and has never found that level again. On that day in Brisbane, he was easily as good as any I've ever seen, and they just beat us by 8 runs.

Your opponents are allowed to play well, and a 2 test series on Australian pitches - pitches which produce results - is always risking a drawn series.

Now, to the point of this exercise. Cricketers these days - compared to in the early 2000's - can theoretically play cricket at all times. Between franchise cricket and national duties, it is up to them when they choose to take a break. The blokes in this case all - with the exceptions of Marnus, Usman and Alex Carey - play IPL, and could play in any of the T20 comps worldwide. Burnout is a real ****ing thing, for any number of reasons; it could be jetlag due to nation and timezone hopping for months on end, it could be that you work a high pressure job and it's not always sunshine and rainbows and endless ****ing victories.

Sometimes you get a road. Sometimes, you get a minefield.

That's the beauty of cricket, Topkent. It's in the minutiae, in going through the results and seeing why things happened the way they did. Cricket is stories, tales, legends; it's the most narrative of sports. To focus on the results the way your post does is to skip entirely to the ending; you rob yourself of the richness of it. But that should come as no surprise, given your sneering attitude here; you're not interested in the sport, not really.

 

[beatnik]

In 2023, Australia went to India, knowing that they'd have a massive 12 months. They'd just played a 5 test summer at home - against the WI and SA, which they'd won 5-0 - and the schedule was absolutely full.

They played a 4 test series against India, starting on the 9/2 and finishing on the 9/3; that's four tests in 28 days. They then played the WTC match in England on the 7th of June, with a 5 match Ashes series beginning on the 16th and ending on the 27th of July; in the final test of the Ashes, England played the 'ball's been whacked out of shape' trick and Joel Wilson took out a ball supposedly the same age as the 40+ over pill they had used that was not moving at all. This new ball didn't just swing, it moved like prime Akram and they stole the final test of the series, drawing the thing. You then had the ODI world cup in India - which we won - and in that summer, we played six tests; three against Pakistan and two against the WI before a break.

These matches used more or less the same group of around 14-15 players, and towards the end they got tired. It showed in their cricket more or less all summer; the players were professionals and played some pretty clinical cricket, but they were just burnt out.

In that final test - the test after we smashed them by 10 wickets - Shamar Joseph walked off the ground on day 3 with a toe injury that was thought to be potentially the end of his tour. He returned to the ground the next day and bowled faster than he ever had and ever has since. He's bowling 125-130 clicks now, and has never found that level again. On that day in Brisbane, he was easily as good as any I've ever seen, and they just beat us by 8 runs.

Your opponents are allowed to play well, and a 2 test series on Australian pitches - pitches which produce results - is always risking a drawn series.

Now, to the point of this exercise. Cricketers these days - compared to in the early 2000's - can theoretically play cricket at all times. Between franchise cricket and national duties, it is up to them when they choose to take a break. The blokes in this case all - with the exceptions of Marnus, Usman and Alex Carey - play IPL, and could play in any of the T20 comps worldwide.

That's the beauty of cricket, Topkent. It's in the minutiae, in going through the results and seeing why things happened the way they did. Cricket is stories, tales, legends; it's the most narrative of sports. To focus on the results the way your post does is to skip entirely to the ending; you rob yourself of the richness of it. But that should come as no surprise, given your sneering attitude here; you're not interested in the sport, not really.

Beautifully put sir

 

[Coops93]

Like **** he is

It depends how you define a captain, really. It's a pretty fair case to make.

Ponting was often criticised for not really being a creative captain - he never needed to be, he just tossed the ball to Warney and Pidge and said cmon lads. Not having a go at him for that, everyone would do the same. But on occasions where things didn't work out it was shown he wasn't the most creative on field and was more lead by example.

Clarke was tactically good, but off field he had his issues. I think he lead by example on field better than he's given credit in fairness. But the locker room personality and off field issues mean there was never full cohesion between his on-field nous and team building behind the scenes.

Smith I thought was very good until it wasn't. Without Warner in the side he potentially goes down as one of our greatest captains - Lead by example and was creative on field while being a good locker room influence. Unfortunately, his stewardship got hijacked and taken advantage of by an angry midget and thus his captaincy legacy is soiled forever.

Paine was a decent enough emergency stop-gap solution. Did a job in setting a culture, but lacked on field nous and individually couldn't put in the big performances to lead from the front. His skippering was partially responsible for some of our all-time losses.

Cummins - Continued to change the culture and you have to say has successfully changed the image of the team entirely, in a way that has angered some demographics for some reason. We're just about the best team in the world culture wise right now. Further, his on field success includes every ICC trophy he can win as well as an Ashes retention. You could make the case we were outplayed in 4 of the 5 tests, yet somehow we got a result in our favour. One test in particular was singled handedly down to him. The other, Lords, his captaincy in got Stokes after he was going off could have won that test as well instead of being a repeat of the last time Stokes did it.

He gets criticised for being conservative or defensive, but I can't really see a time where we've lost a game because we defended too much since he's been captain, so I don't get it as a criticism, personally. He plays the percentages and doesn't make unnecessarily aggressive decisions for the sake of them, which has worked perfectly well. Further, individually he's one of the best lead by example skippers we've had.

The only reasons not to like Pat as captain have nothing to do with cricket. On field he definitely has a fair case of being the best since Waugh, and is on the path to being one of the greatest.

 

[The Lobbster]

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Your opponents are allowed to play well.

This is the most important quote in this whole thread. For some reason, certain Australian cricket fans can’t believe when any other team does well against Australia. They just seem to assume that when opposition teams do well, it’s us ****ing up.

 

[Gethelred]

This is the most important quote in this whole thread. For some reason, certain Australian cricket fans can’t believe when any other team does well against Australia. They just seem to assume that when opposition teams do well, it’s us ****ing up.

I think it's due to the near decade and a half of it just point blank not mattering. During Waugh/Ponting and even early Clarke, you could have an opposition player break out and play some ****ing good cricket in a home summer and it just wouldn't matter.

It's also due to the inherent nature of the sport. A batter breaks out and scores multiple hundreds in the series, it mightn't matter a whole heap because your bats might just up and make more. A bowler breaks out - think, Rabada on the previous tour of here prior to 2022-23 - and they've taken your upper order potentially twice in a dig. Over the last few years it's been bowlers breaking out, and bowlers win tests.