Cummins’ lack of intent shows sharp contrast of styles before Ashes duel

L unchtime at the Oval, and Australia are six-wickets down with a lead of 373. Alex Carey’s at one end, 41 not out off 61 balls, Mitchell Starc’s at the other, 11 off 19. It’s already over a hundred runs more than anyone’s ever scored in the fourth innings to win a Test here, and that particular match was way back in the 1902 Ashes, when Gilbert Jessop blazed his 76-ball hundred. The pressing question then, the one everyone was chewing over in the food and drink queues, was ‘what’s next?’ A burst of attacking cricket, a tumble of tail-end wickets?

What we got, instead, was one of those soporific hours when play slows down to an amble. Starc threw the odd shot, a clip through midwicket for four, a punch down the ground for another, Carey tinkered around in singles. The crowd quietened down, the sun drifted overhead, airplanes came and went. Tick. A single off one over. Tock. A single off the next. Tick. Another single from the one after. Tock. In 10 overs, Australia scored all of 31 runs. The second hand wavered, even seemed to be moving backwards.

The lead grew, past the 378 England made to beat India at Edgbaston last year, past the 404 Don Bradman’s Australia scored to beat England at Headingley back in 1948, and then on beyond the world record of 418 set by Brian Lara’s West Indies against Australia in 2003. Carey reached his fifty, and pressed on into the 60s. Everyone kept one eye on the balcony, wondering whether, and when, Pat Cummins was going to call them in and set to bowling, but he was still padded up, ready and waiting for his turn at bat.

Which he duly arrived when Starc was caught at slip. India had taken the new ball by now, and the run rate had perked up. But it still wasn’t particularly clear what