Cummins sees bright side of clouded declaration call

Assessing the effectiveness of a Test cricket captain's declaration is rather like passing judgement on authorities' capability in managing a pandemic.

There's a lot of modelling that gets run, with scenarios ranging from doomsday to genius thrown about, but it's only in retrospect that wisdom or wilful damage can be judicially bestowed.

In forensically examining the barely cold cadaver of the fourth Vodafone Ashes Test at the SCG, early evidence suggests it was not so much the delay in Australia foreclosing their second innings that meant they finished within a final gasp of victory, but rather Sydney's gloomy summer weather.

Faced with his first such decision in his third Test as Australia captain, Pat Cummins revealed the rationale for waiting until an hour before stumps on day four before calling a halt to his batters' dominance was based on a fairly straightforward mathematical formula.

Cummins and his fellow dressing room strategists took the average scoring rate across the first three-and-a-lot days of the Test (3.46 runs per over) and extrapolated it across the minimum number of overs that might remain in the game to hit upon a suitable fourth innings target.

Bearing the knowledge that Sydney's pitch no longer breaks up to make batting a crapshoot as was the case in decades past – painfully learned last year when India lost just five wickets across 131 overs batting last – he settled on 388 from 110 overs, give or take a few.

That might coax England's batters into seeing a genuine prospect of their first win of the summer if they could find a couple of contributors able to meet the 3.53 asking rate for a prolonged period, while also acknowledging that was about as likely as supermarket shelves magically replenishing.

What Cummins and co. didn't factor into their sums was the rain dump that arrived at the SCG during today's lunch interval thereby delaying play's resumption by an hour, subtracting seven overs from Australia's diligently crunched numbers.

Then there was the heavy cloud that descended around the time stumps might have been drawn on a more perfect day (6pm local time), which meant the ultimate hour of a gripping last session was played in such unseasonal gloom Australia was unable to use their pace bowlers for the final few overs.

"I thought 110 or so overs at that rate still gave them a bit of a cherry (to chase) if a couple of batters got in," Cummins said after England's last pair Stuart Broad and James Anderson survived the final 12 deliveries of spin from Nathan Lyon and Steve Smith to secure the stalemate.

"I would like to have bowled Scott (Boland, the innings' leading wicket-taker) but I think it was probably the right decision to be fair, it was pretty dark out there.

"I think the weather played a bit of a part in this game, and we've basically just learned that we can't predict it at all.

"I wanted (to set England) about three and a half an over.

"I thought the wicket was not playing too many tricks, and I thought if they batted really well then 350 was pretty achievable out there so I wanted to give us enough time (to bowl them out).

"And having the luxury after the way Greeny (Cameron Green) and Usman (Khawaja) batted (on the fourth evening) to have enough runs in the bank that we could effectively attack for those whole 110 overs."

It was the lure of those bonus runs that convinced Cummins to delay the declaration while Khawaja and Green were in full flow, despite knowing England's already under-performing batting might be further hobbled by injuries to Ben Stokes (side), Jonny Bairstow (thumb) and Jos Buttler (finger).

And by having the luxury to flat-out attack throughout today's final session – which England began four-down and needing a nonsensical 214 runs from the minimum 35 overs available – Cummins' sole concern became where to position his catchers rather than any mundane worry about run-saving options.

It meant that, even in the immediate aftermath of a drawn result in a Test his team had dominated for all but a couple of sessions on day three, Cummins' overwhelming emotion was not of an opportunity squandered but a joyful experience gained.

"Having a lot of runs on the board meant we could get pretty creative, and I always felt like we were looking for wickets as opposed to trying to save a match or anything like that," he said tonight.

"I feel like I was able to make quite a few calls – some came off, and some didn't.

"It was a lot of fun, the last hour or two you're normally setting a field to try and take wickets but also stop runs.

"This was purely where do we think a catch might go.

"I loved it.

"From this year compared to last year (against India), I think we've made some improvements.

"We probably stuck at some plans a little bit longer, and when you're that far ahead of the game of course you want to win it but I thought England played well.

"I was really proud with how everyone went, the plans we had, we stuck at it and I thought we bowled quite well.

"We got close, but not close enough."

Joe Root, Cummins's captaincy rival in this suddenly less-lopsided Ashes campaign, must surely dream about finding himself in a position where he could contemplate declaring his team's innings closed rather than watching it summarily fold through trembling fingers clasped in front of his eyes.

But perhaps the next-best outcome was seeing openers Zak Crawley and Haseeb Hameed survive an exacting 11-over stint against the new ball on Saturday evening which they finished with all wickets intact, thereby providing hope (if not impetus) heading into their day five assignment.

England had found themselves facing almost the exact same predicament at the MCG in the preceding Test, forced to begin their second innings with an hour's play remaining on the second day in which time they buckled to 4-22 come the close.

While acknowledging the MCG pitch bore little resemblance to the hard dry surface at Sydney that "doesn't play like a traditional, broken-up day five wicket" these days, Cummins must have hoped for at least a breakthrough or two on that penultimate evening.

The fact his bowlers then had a minimum quota of 98 overs – further reduced by today's lunch time rain – to capture all 10 England wickets on the same strip of turf they'd managed just three across a full final day against India last year meant it was always going to be a "grind" for him and his men.

The drawn result sees Australia sit second on the ICC's World Test Championship ladder and leaves England stuck at the bottom - pending the result of the ongoing second Test between New Zealand and Bangladesh.

Nevertheless, Root took great pride and a measure of satisfaction from the brave draw while noting the chance of them successfully chasing the distant target Cummins belatedly set on Saturday would have required everything suddenly going right for England on a tour where very little thus far has.

"It's a small step forward," Root surmised this evening.

"Coming into the game I spoke a lot about putting some pride back into English cricket and into the Test performances, and I think the fight and the desire and the character shown today, and throughout the five days has done that in a small way.

"We would have had to have played the perfect game to go into the last session with any chance of chasing that (total) down.

"But off the back of Melbourne, given the pressure that was on the guys coming into a similar sort of situation, to be able to manage it like they did was impressive and really important in terms of coming here today none down and having a full go at it.

"I'm really pleased with the way they (Crawley and Hameed) managed to deal with that pressure and give us a great opportunity to get something from this game at the start of the day."

Vodafone Men's Ashes

Squads

Australia: Pat Cummins (c), Steve Smith (vc), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Nic Maddinson, Michael Neser, Jhye Richardson, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner

England: Joe Root (c), James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Dom Bess, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Haseeb Hameed, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Dawid Malan, Craig Overton, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood

Schedule

First Test: Australia won by nine wickets

Second Test: Australia won by 275 runs

Third Test: Australia won by an innings and 14 runs

Fourth Test: Match drawn

Fifth Test: January 14-18, Blundstone Arena