While it took longer than expected on the fifth day in Adelaide, eventually it was done. A series won, the Ashes retained for another year and a half until they next go up for grabs in England. For Pat Cummins, this makes three consecutive Ashes series captained without giving up the urn. The feat leaves him in sparse but fine company: the others to do it are Joe Darling, Don Bradman, Richie Benaud, Mike Brearley, Allan Border and Mark Taylor.
It made things neater that Steve Smith missed this third Test, having captained the first two wins in Cummins’ absence, so that it didn’t feel like the full-time captain was swooping in to hoover up the stand-in’s lunch. Those situations can be odd, like Adam Gilchrist filling in to lead what was very much Ricky Ponting’s team, captaining two wins in India in 2004 before Ponting returned from injury once the series was decided. Who gets credit for the win?
Smith and Cummins have both made their contribution to the current result, just as both have contributed throughout a team streak of five series holding the urn, a run dating back to Smith’s batting heroics in 2017-18 just before the tour to South Africa that blew up his full-time captaincy. Australian teams have had only three better streaks as Ashes holders: six series between 1934 and 1950-51, six between 1958-59 and 1968, and eight series between 1989 and 2002-03.
Through this time though, despite three thumping wins at home, what is missing is a series win in England, where Australia have twice retained the trophy 2-2 after dropping the fifth Test at The Oval. The corporate messaging after those draws has stayed upbeat, framing possession of the urn as the most important part of the equation, but the lack of an outright win in England still rankles with the core of players who are yet to experience one despite such long careers.
Take Cummins first, who will be 34 in 2027 and may well still be in charge. If so, he can try to match Bradman as the only captain to hold the urn four times. Mitchell Starc will be 37, but given the way he has got better and better over the last six years, and given he has bossed this series so far with 22 wickets at 17, it’s not outlandish to think that he can still be a force in a year and a half.
Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon now have the longer prices for 2027 given their injury troubles, as players who will be 36 and 39 respectively, but Hazlewood has bowled as well as ever in recent months before the current setback, and Lyon had moments of his best in Adelaide with balls that still drifted, dipped and turned. There is currently no other spinner in Australia with such attributes. As for Smith, he’s had a volatile few years in terms of runs and his own apparent interest in the game, and would turn 38 shortly before the next Ashes starts. His enthusiasm for such a mission remains a mystery.
The critiques of Australia as Dad’s Army, brushed off before this series, have proven to have some substance. Cummins and Hazlewood went down injured before a ball was bowled, Lyon ripped a hamstring diving in his first match back after a break, Smith had to miss Adelaide with a bout of the wobbles, Usman Khawaja can’t reach catches below his knees and hobbled off twice with a bad back during fielding innings shorter than a Sunday social game. Scott Boland will be 38 next Ashes, the reserve seamers are a few years behind, and Cameron Green as the lone 20-something is short of runs and increasingly short of time to find them.
And yet, that next series is not that far away, and this current team has still smashed up England in near record time. Much note has been taken of a winning span of 11 playing days, and how it equals the two thrashings dished out at the turn of this millennium. All of those trail Warwick Armstrong’s team from 1921 who won the Ashes in eight days of play, although given those Tests only had three scheduled days, their pacing as contests was very different. By deliveries bowled, this year’s win in 786.3 overs was still faster than Armstrong’s team with 791.5, substantially faster than Steve Waugh’s 2002-03 team with 896.4, and only trailed Waugh’s 2001 tour of England that wrapped things up in 665.1 overs.
Smith and Khawaja have played Ashes cricket since 2010 and 2011 respectively, Starc and Lyon since 2013, Hazlewood since 2015, and while Cummins came in latest in 2017-18, he has been the most consistently picked bowler, then the leader, and has never yet tasted a loss. None of these players needs 2027 to justify their place in the pantheon of this contest, that much now is settled. But still, the next adventure sits there, a bauble glowing gently on the Christmas tree for now. It will be interesting to see who is drawn by its light.
