It is not even a year since Australia was beaten at home convincingly by an Indian Test team who were fighting against all odds and now it’s time for the home team, Australia who have had issues off the field to get ready for the all-important Ashes. Last summer against India, the home team had it all covered in the 3rd as well as the 4th Test match. It was just some brilliant batting display on the last day by the Indian side which resulted in a draw and a win for them respectively, or is it so? In this piece we analyze the performance of Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Starc who were below par against India and how does the new captain Pat Cummins gets the best out of them.
Poor outing vs India
Starc who is seen as Australia’s main threat with the bowl had a very poor outing against the Indians, he could only manage 11 wickets in four matches. The most concerning stat was his bowling average in the fourth innings, it was a massive 161. Starc’s career average in that phase has been 26.6, his best out of all 4 innings. The bowler picked up only one wicket in 42 overs in this game phase.
Nathan Lyon’s favorite opponent is India, he has 94 wickets against them and has bowled more than 1000 overs to the Indian batters. But last summer, he could only manage nine wickets in the four matches. He had picked up 21 and 23 wickets respectively when India toured Australia before that. A career strike rate of 66.4 went up to 124.7, simply Lyon was taking 2x the number of balls than usual for picking up a wicket. This meant more overs to bowl for him, and more work for the pacers to do, and less rest. Put that with all four, Pat Cummins & Josh Hazlewood -the other two, playing throughout the series was a recipe for disaster.
Prior performance
Yes, Starc did have a poor summer against India, but two years back when Pakistan & New Zealand played Australia, the bowler was in red hot form. 29 wickets in five matches at an average of 17. The same was the case with Lyon, he also managed to pick up 27 wickets in five matches. Starch was the leading wicket-taker in both those series.
Australia has not played any Test match after that series and this could work both ways for them. It can be a new approach under the new captain Cummins but you have to remember all the three pacers were a part of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup squad and will take some time to get back to Test match bowling and mindset. Apart from Joe Root ( batting average- 38.0), Jonny Bairstow( 28), and Ben Stokes (34) who have some experience down under, the other batters in the England squad have almost little to no experience of playing Test cricket in those conditions. In the last Ashes down under(2017-18), the four bowlers mentioned were at their level best in a way where all of them shared wickets equally. Starch had 22, Cummins had 23 and both Hazlewood and Lyon had 21.
Joe Root will be the biggest challenge for Australia given his form in 2021. With 1455 runs at an average of 66.13, the batter is the highest run-getter in Test cricket this year. Last time when England toured Australia root manage to get five 50’s in 9 innings. Root struggles against Cummins with an average of just 20 and getting out seven times. It will be a great captain vs captain battle to watch out for. There are high chances that the winner of this battle could dictate the direction of the series.
Conclusion
Both Starch & Lyon would be wanting to get back on the field to get back in the wickets column and there will be no bigger motivation than Ashes at home. However, the world has seen what can happen if Australia plays their 4 main bowlers for the entirety of the series, and here there is one more match than the last summer. One question which will haunt the management and the fans is, what if Pat Cummins gets injured or has a niggle, will they risk playing him as the captain then?