Pat Cummins: First the Allan Border Medal, next the captaincy

You're probably right...:)

Can you give me an example of where I supported the idea of Cummins opening the bowling? Pretty sure my position has been consistent, which is (for the slow learners)... 1. Cummins has an excellent record bowling first change. If you're going to change that, you'd better have a good reason to do so. Usually that means providing some evidence for that argument. 2. One of David's arguments seems to be that Cummins is Australia's best bowler, so therefore he should open. That is not a valid argument. If you applied that to batting you'd have to have your best batsmen open the batting. 3. If you put Cummins in as an opening bowler that means one of the current opening bowlers has to become a first change bowler. That might not suit their particular skills. So T.W.A.T - perhaps it's you that needs the therapy? It would appear your acronym suits you!

Fair point. It would have been interesting to see what Paine's record would have turned out to be if he had not had such bad luck with injuries right at the point where he looked like breaking through into the international arena.

That's 2 of us the the Train has accused of having no 'self-awareness' on two separate articles within the space of 5 minutes. I suspect, Train, you have picked up some pop-psychology. The problem is, you misunderstand it and you mis-apply it. Bad night?

You also claimed previously that David had no clue when pushing for Cummins to open the bowling. Although when other, more fashionable contributors, began suggesting Cummins should get the cherry you supported them... Hmm, "Christo, I have no idea what a daddyo is" I suspect you are somewhat lacking in self awareness and you have a hardon for Mr Lord's writing that would be better addressed in therapy.

The medal Pat won is still known as the Allan Border Medal. Just the awards night they decided to give a more general name to since there are so many other awards given.

CORRECTION: No longer known as the Border Medal". Was Belinda Clark behind the change?

I agree with you 100% on the currently case for Paine, but differ slightly if the question is - who would you prefer as a batsman, Paine or Haddin. The smaller sample size for Paine - 35 innings vs 112 for Haddin leaves open the possibility that he has had an atypical number of not outs earlier in his career that could even out over a longer career. In those circumstances, the capacity to play big, decisive innings (Haddin’s 4 tons) could arguably override the small advantage Paine has in the averages column (35 vs 33) in comparing records. I don’t think too many would opt for Paine over Haddin in batting. But none of that detracts from Paine’s strong record in batting and as the best keeper in the country, and obvious credentials for continuing as captain.

True. I think the more salient point is that Holder seems to be the only one they could turn to for leadership. Only go to a fast bowler for captaincy, if you are desperate, otherwise you risk distracting them. Only a very few seem to be of the inspirational type that can do this - Imran, Holder, Kapil Dev. These guys also tended to be all rounders with batting as a genuine second string. (Cummins isn’t at that level yet.). As the Pope below points out, the allrounders have also just often proven bad or ordinary, carrying too much of a burden - Botham, Flintoff, Pollock.

Wasn't Mitch Marsh also a vice captain. Throws that logic out the window.

Smith as the gun, premier bat in the side is undoubtedly a huge asset, and should be all he needs to focus on being for mine.

It might classify as an all-rounder in Australia, but nowhere else haha What a sign of the times. Cummins will remain a perfect number 8 I think, and his stats reflect this. Definitely has the defence and technique of a top-six player, but doubt we will ever see him there.

I don't think I'd want to go in with five genuine bowlers on the basis that a number of them can bat a bit though, certainly not with our top 6. If we had a really strong batting lineup and a Gilchrist-like keeper, then you could potentially put the keeper at 6 and play the extra bowler if you had a tail something like Pattinson, Cummins, Starc, J.Richardson, Lyon. But we don't have a strong enough batting lineup to really do that. England have basically tried picking all their bowlers, other than Anderson and Broad, based on picking the bowlers with the best batting averages, to make up for their poor batting lineup, but I'm not sure that's the way to go either.

And I still don't get the logic behind David's argument, which seems to be "Cummins should be the next captain because...other bowlers have been captain". Standard David Lord article structure: 1. Open by making a statement. 2. Get some stats that are often tangential (at best) or irrelevant (at worst) and list them. 3. Conclude by claiming that original statement must be true because the "facts speak for themselves".

Yes. That's where Mitch fell short (his batting still has time) but Stoinis can make it. I also think an all rounder is no longer as important. With bowlers like Cummins, Starc, Richardson, Agar, Neser...batting as well as they do, 2 of them provide better alternatives than one good all rounder.

Wade's test batting average is 28. Wade's been scoring some runs this year, but not against the likes of the Indian bowling attack. He's been tried a couple of times before and never been able to step up to the test arena and have anywhere near the same success. Handscomb has technique issues that have caused him all sorts of issues at test level in recent times, and he doesn't play as a keeper in first class cricket either.

Smith returning to the captaincy would largely come down to there not being any other better options. If Head has firmly established himself in the team by then, he's the man, if he can barely buy a run in England and doesn't survive the Ashes, and the team remains a revolving door of batsmen with no other regular senior players to pick from, then Smith could possibly walk back into the job.

Have to agree here. He's had a decent start to his test career, probably exceeded most people's expectations of him to this point. To me, the only thing that keeps him from being the next captain is if he can't play well enough to keep his place in the side. If he manages to do that, become at least a solid 42-43 average test batsman who doesn't let anyone down with the bat, over a longer period of time, then he's a shoe-in for the next test captain.

I think Travis Michael Head, age 25, will be the next full time captain of Australia although he might have to wait 2 more years. Tim Paine, age 34, can retain the captaincy for another 2 years while Smith, Warner and Cummins focus on their respective disciplines and bring the X-factor.

The number of genuine allrounders who fit that description over the history of test cricket could probably be counted on one hand. Kallis, Sobers, and maybe 2-3 others max. A more reasonable definition of an allrounder would be someone who can make the team on one of their disciplines alone, and the other isn't too bad, though they wouldn't make the team on that. The problem comes in constantly searching for this sort of allrounder by picking players who really aren't good enough in either discipline to make the team based on either.