When Pat Cummins had Henry Nicholls trapped in front on Saturday at the MCG, he was on a hat-trick, having picked up the wicket of Ross Taylor in the previous delivery. But there was something more significant about the Nicholls wicket. It was the first time Cummins was dismissing a batsman LBW in Tests since March 2018.
The six lbws of Pat Cummins' Test career
— Andrew McGlashan (@andymcg_cricket) December 28, 2019
Root: Brisbane, November 2017
Bairstow: Sydney, January 2018
Markram: Port Elizabeth, March 2018
du Plessis: Johannesburg, March 2018
de Kock: Johannesburg, March 2018
Nicholls: Melbourne, December 2019https://t.co/ZNpidYw5Jh#AUSvNZ
Now, Cummins isn't just any fast bowler. He is the no.1 bowler in the ICC Test rankings as we write this with 898 rating points, with Kagiso Rabada at 839 points coming a distant second. In 2019, the Aussie seamer is by a large distance the highest wicket-taker with 59 scalps in 12 Test matches.
Stuart Broad and Mitchell Starc, the second and third best, do not even have 50 wickets. Of Cummins' 59 wickets in the year, a whopping 81.35% are caught out (48 out of 59 of them) while 10 dismissals are bowled and the remaining one - that of Nicholls - is LBW.
In 2018, in the series against South Africa, Cummins dismissed Aiden Markram, Faf du Plessis and Quinton de Kock leg before wicket. But that's a rare anomaly to his general trend of not getting LBWs.
Of Cummins' 139 Test wickets, 115 are caught out while 18 are bowled. Only 6 dismissals are batsmen trapped in front of the wicket. He picked up 70 wickets between his last LBW victim (de Kock) and this one (Nicholls), which is the fifth-highest between two LBW dismissals for any bowler.
Most consecutive Test wickets without an lbw:
— Andrew Samson (@AWSStats) December 28, 2019
JV Saunders (Aus) 79 1902-08 (his whole career)
PH Edmonds (Eng) 78 1978-86
AA Mallett (Aus) 70 1972-80
EJ Chatfield (NZ) 70 1983-86
PJ Cummins (Aus) 70 2018-19 (ended today)
Three of the five are Australians, with Saunders completing a whole career with zero LBW victims. For a no 1 ranked Test bowler to go this long without a particular dismissal mode is super rare and it just goes on to show how impactful Cummins could be if he can bring the stumps more into play.
Since his return to Test cricket in March 2017, only Nathan Lyon has more Test wickets than Cummins' tally of 132. The Australian has picked up wickets every 47th ball in a Test match on an average and has four five-wicket hauls in this time frame.
Feature image courtesy: AFP / William West
