The captaincy of Pat Cummins came under fire both in the recent Ashes series and tour of India.
However, his record is one of achievement: retention of the Ashes twice, including a 4-0 thrashing of England at home in 2021-2022; a rare win in Pakistan 1-0 in 2022; a drawn series in Sri Lanka in 2022; easy home wins against the West Indies and South Africa in 2022-2023; and a World Test Championship victory in 2023.
The blip on the radar is a series loss in India, a fate which has met many Australian captains. In Cummins’s case the discussion centres around the manner of his captaincy rather than necessarily the outcomes. There has been considerable criticism of defensive fields and mindsets, lack of creativity and dare in tactics and the occasional totally frazzled look of the captain and his team when the opposition has the initiative.
Yet how does the captaincy of Pat Cummins stack up? A look at the numbers reveals some interesting and important findings. The following draws on ESPN Cricinfo data with author calculations.
If we compare Cummins’s record with that of Tim Paine and Steve Smith, his immediate predecessors, we find that Cummins has a 52.4% winning percentage (wins/total matches captained), with draws at 23.8% and losses at 23.8%, out of 21 tests captained.
This compares favourably with Tim Paine who achieved a 47.8% winning percentage, 34.8% losses and 17.4% draws, out of 23 matches in charge. Tim Paine’s figures reflect a disastrous start to his captaincy having lost his first 4 games in charge.
Steve Smith has a winning percentage of 55.3%, losses 26.3% and draws 18.4% from 38 matches. Pat Cummins therefore has a lower winning ratio than Steve Smith but also a lower losing ratio and a higher propensity for draws.
Cummins has the highest draw percentage of the three captains and a higher winning percentage and lower losing percentage compared with Paine. This raises an important issue. Is the Cummins captaincy a defensively oriented one compared to the other two captains, as reflected in the higher propensity to draw matches? A number of factors contribute to drawn test matches but potentially one of these is a lack of dare.
The next set of statistics is telling. Comparing Cummins to Smith, we observe that Cummins’s playing performance has declined since assuming the captaincy while that of Steve Smith has improved significantly.
As captain Pat Cummins has a bowling average of 25.89, compared to 21.59 when not captain. Likewise, his strike rate has marginally declined as captain as has the traditional economy rate which measures runs per over. Separately, we calculated the ratio of maidens to overs bowled and also found a decline when captain.
By contrast, Steve Smith’s performance has improved considerably. His batting average has improved from 53.99 when not captain to 66.67 as captain, while Smith’s strike rate improved as captain as has his rate of centuries ie the ratio of centuries scored to innings played. Some players thrive on the responsibility of leadership.
Pat Cummins of Australia poses with a replica Ashes Urn . (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
It inspires and challenges them to do better. Smith falls into this camp whereas Pat Cummins does not appear to. The burden of captaincy seems to wear heavily on Cummins. This raises a key issue about whether being a bowling captain really is in the best interests of the player concerned or team.
Finally, one of the attributes of captaincy is to inspire others. Without ascribing causality, a number of key players’ performances have declined with Pat Cummins as captain compared to other captains. The following table highlights this.
Averages With Pat Cummins as captain/ Averages with other captains
David Warner 29.11/ 48.17
Usman Khawaja 59/ 37.8
Marnus Laburschagne 42.08/ 69.8
Steve Smith 50.70/ 63.1
Travis Head 44.4/ 58.4
Pat Cummins 28.81/ 27.7
Mitchell Starc 25.89/ 23.0
Josh Hazelwood 30.92/ 23.7
Nathan Lyon 28.85/ 32.03
In the batting, with the exception of the second coming of Usman Khawaja, the other batsmen have better records under captains other than Cummins. This is particularly so for David Warner. On the bowling front, all but Nathan Lyon have experienced declined under Cummins. This is most apparent in the performance of Josh Hazelwood.
If one of the roles of a captain is to inspire others, on this score Pat Cummins has struggled. However, care needs to be exercised here. The declining performance of a number of these players reflects various factors including ageing, where the matches are played, and the quality of the opposition. The rise of India and its recent domination of Australia would appear to be playing a role here.
While at the aggregate level Pat Cummins captaincy would appear to be a success, this is masking some key concerns. In short, the jury is still out.
Michael Coote
Roar Rookie
Courtney Walsh 38, Curtley Ambrose 37, Richard Hadlee 39, Ray Lindwall 39, Glenn Mcgrath 37, when they retired. Plenty of Pace Bowlers have played on into their late 30s and many without the medical advances available today.
The Bush
Roar Guru
Yes, pointing out the complete and utter anomaly who does not, in any way, reflect the standard career path of nearly every other cricketer is so relevant...
Michael Coote
Roar Rookie
Before we start writing people off at 32-33, Jimmy Anderson's current average of 26.42 at 41 yo is the lowest it has ever been, spent most of his career up around 28, to get his average down to 26 at this stage of his career (the longest in Test history for a bowler) he would have had to average around 23-24 after turning 35.
Nick
Roar Rookie
Exactly. Warner was underperforming long before Cummins took over. Hazlewood - well, he's barely been fit to bowl while Cummins has been captain.
Nick
Roar Rookie
Yup. Ponting's captaincy strategy was also so painfully boring to watch. Never enforce the follow on, and just inflate averages with patently unnecessary 3rd innings to set stupidly high 4th innings targets.
Nick
Roar Rookie
Marnus lived a charmed life under Paine’s captaincy; he only toured once in 2019. Unsurprisingly, Labuschagne’s stats are on a downward trajectory after an impossibly good start in back to back to back home summers (2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22) when he didn’t tour and feasted at home. Well said. His average was always inflated by those back to back summers. The first class average is generally the truer reflection of one's ability than the test average. In a career of more than 20 tests, it's very rare for a test average to be bombastically higher than a FC one, and Labu's test average of 51 is coming back to his FC average of 46. I’d also be really interested to know what Pat’s bowling average was under his own captaincy before he got belted in this Ashes. He took a hiding this Ashes, but is that the case for the other series? 22. Same as his non-captaincy record. He is an astonishingly good bowler.
Tim Carter
Roar Pro
No one realized when he said "Finish me off" that it was a reference to his career.
The Bush
Roar Guru
Pat’s had more Ashes success already, 1.5 from two as against Pontings 1 from 4… also a win is Pakistan, Ponting never did that… so he’s actually holding up, though I get the joke of course
Choppy Zezers
Roar Rookie
Don, you have always been so vocal in praising the excellent stewardship of PC. I feel the PC will draw NSW and WA closer together like never before. PC is the future
jammel
Roar Rookie
So who's the greater captain, Bush - Ricky or PattyC? :)
The Bush
Roar Guru
The Smith thing really is just a statistical anomaly; too small of a sample size. Plus each time Smith was just filling in for Cummins, it’s hard to see how he can take any credit (or blame) for how the players generally perform their core skills whilst he’s filling in. Great article though, does raise some interesting questions!
Opeo
Roar Rookie
I think Cummins, Smith, and Paine having similar records reflects Cummins having captained a greater proportion of his matches against significantly better opposition. Three of Cummins four away series have been against countries to whom we had won a combined two test matches in nearly 20 years before he became captain. His other away tour was in a place a place where we have had more success but still not won a series in 20 years. I think Tim Paine won just two overseas tests during his whole captaincy. These were against an English team that had lost to the West Indies, and failed to beat Pakistan at home, in its previous two series. Cummins encountered an England that had won 14 of its last 16 tests and not lost a series in 18 months. Cummins drew in Sri Lanka whereas Smith lost there 3-0 as captain. We also got flogged at home against South Africa with Smith as captain. Tim Paine could not beat India in Australia but Cummins beat them at a neutral venue. Cummins won a series in Pakistan. No other captain has won an away test, let alone a series, against Pakistan since Steve Waugh. Australia’s next seven tests are at home against Pakistan and the West Indies, and in New Zealand. If he wins all of those tests, which is plausible, his win percentage will be over 75%.
Pedro
Roar Rookie
Correlation doesn’t equal causation. Cummins has not been the most inspiring captain in terms of his decision making although his own performances have mostly continued to be top rate. I think there are a multitude of factors which have influenced the performance of the other players.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
The pen.s is mightier than the sword
Chip
Roar Guru
Hi again The Bush. Sorry to labour the point and you mount some good arguments but under Smith Head has averaged 77 compared to 44.4 under Cummins and 39.75 under Paine. However one measures means and things Head has received an enormous bump under Smith. I was thinking of removing Smith captaincy from the numbers since he has only captained Head in 4 tests but felt that it was not appropriate to do so. Cheers
The Bush
Roar Guru
Days before from memory
matth
Roar Guru
Sorry I didn’t realize he was in charge for the 2021-22 home summer. Did Paine fall on his sword just before that?
The Bush
Roar Guru
And in New Zealand, unless they suddenly get a lot better. Wagner is 37 and they don't have Boult, so I doubt New Zealand's bowling will be too impressive. Assuming our bowlers get the job done, we should win that tour as well.
The Bush
Roar Guru
Sorry Chip I do want to be clear, the figures aren't being conflated due to that, they're just not correct. For Labs it probably doesn't change anything, 62 against 42 is still a big drop anyway, but it does make a difference for Head, who's averaging basically the same. The others are really not that surprising though, as I noted above, it's really just an age thing. Smith and Warner's averages were always going to drop at this point in their careers, though Warner's is very stark and it if wasn't for weak selectors he'd have been dumped long ago. The same for the bowlers, Starc and Hazlewood are coming to the end of their careers, so their averages will slip. I think it's the drop off in his own bowling, if that has in fact occurred, that's the biggest concern. Though I do wonder how much the Ashes beating has blown his stats out, plus a tough tour the never-ending-road in Pakistan.
The Bush
Roar Guru
Yes you’re right on Khawaja, my mistake!