Australia’s newly-appointed Test captain, Pat Cummins, has, on Friday (November 26), insisted that his leadership style could be different from his predecessors' and revealed that he wanted the former skipper, Steve Smith, to be named as the vice-captain of the Test side.
Cummins further indicated there may be occasions when he will hand over to Smith on the field, saying he will be leaning a lot on his deputy for tactical advice as the pacer made it clear that the right-hander is central to how he wants Australia to function under their leadership going forward in Tests.
On Friday, Cummins was named Australia’s first fast bowler Test captain on a full-time basis and Smith as his deputy by Cricket Australia after Tim Paine resigned last week over a ‘sexting’ scandal.
Cummins told reporters, “It might look a little bit different from the outside potentially to other captains in the past. There’s a couple of more unknowns about having a bowling captain and that’s why from the outset I was absolutely determined if I was captain to have someone like Steve as vice-captain next to me.”
He added, “There will be times on the field when I throw to Steve, and you’ll see Steve moving fielders around, maybe doing bowling changes and taking a bit more of an elevated vice-captaincy and that’s what I really want.”
The 28-year-old said that he would be relying heavily on the experienced Smith for his on-field decisions. He further explained, “There’s going to be times where I’m out in the middle, it’s a hot day, I’m in the middle of a (bowling) spell and I need to turn to people for advice for tactics, for experience, and that’s one of the big reasons I wanted Steve to be vice-captain.”
He added, “Steve’s got such huge strengths, especially around tactically out on the field and sees it differently from first slip, huge experience with spinners, bowling changes, and mapping out a game so I’ll be leaning on him hugely for that. We’ll nut out how exactly that works, but it will be a real collaborative approach.”
Cummins also told the five-person panel appointed by Cricket Australia that Smith is “so central to how I see my captaincy style”.
The star pacer said, “It’s obviously not our decision who’s the captain and who’s vice-captain. I made it pretty clear if I was given the captaincy that this is how I saw the team running and tried to bring Steve along for that as well because he’s so central to how I see my captaincy style and how I see the team functioning.”
He concluded, “We both got a chance to think quite a lot about it over the last few days before we presented to a couple of board members and selectors, and that was after chatting between us two as well. I could not think of a better bloke, and a bloke that gives you more comfort if I was to be injured or miss a game.”
Meanwhile, Smith admitted that his return to a leadership role may not be universally accepted, and he understands that since he made mistake in the past, referring to his role in the ball-tampering scandal in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2017.
Smith told reporters, “I think there will be some negativity from some people about it. I understand that. But I know that I’ve grown a great deal over the last three or four years. I’m a more rounded individual and in turn, I think it’s turned me into a better leader.”
He signed off by saying, “If there are times where Patrick hands to me and wants me to take over and do some different things on the field, I’m there for that. A lot of the pressure and responsibility of being perfect is unreasonable. I won’t always get things right, I’m certainly not perfect.”
(With PTI Inputs)
