LAWRENCE BOOTH: Pat Cummins lets his bowling do the talking after the Jonny Bairstow controversy

On the day before the third Ashes Test, Pat Cummins sat in often monosyllabic bewilderment as he faced questions about the stumping of Jonny Bairstow at Lord’s. Out in the middle, he has continued to let his bowling do the talking.

When Australia’s captain bounced out Stuart Broad shortly after lunch on the second day in Leeds, it was his sixth wicket of the innings — an Ashes personal-best — and his 14th of the series, briefly taking him outright top, until Broad drew level by again knocking over David Warner.

Those wickets have come at 23 each, and included an entire XI of victims. Three players — Ben Duckett, Joe Root and Harry Brook — Cummins has dismissed twice. He has galloped along like the thoroughbred we always knew him to be.

Cummins arrived in England for last month’s World Test Championship final against India intent on playing all six Tests in less than eight weeks. And while every other fast bowler in the Ashes has been subject to queries about rest and rotation, he has simply got on with the business of bowling fast.

If only his talents were limited to the day job, England might be thinking of a series win. But Cummins’s skill with the bat took Australia over the line in the first-Test thriller, since when he has broken through with the ball when his country has needed it.

Australia captain Pat Cummins took 6-91 as England were bowled out for 237 at Headingley

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On the fourth evening at Lord’s, he removed Root and Brook in the same over, apparently dooming England to defeat at 45 for four in pursuit of 371. Here at Headingley, he scuppered their reply by removing Duckett for two and Brook for three on the first evening, then deflated them on the second morning with the wicket of Root.

He later added Moeen Ali, Mark Wood and Broad. Such has been Headingley’s determination to make the Australians’ visit as uncomfortable as possibly that barely anyone reacted when Cummins held aloft the ball to celebrate his ninth Test five-for. He deserves better.

This year was touted as his chance to ascend the pedestal, with trips to India and England: win both, said those who judge these things, and he would have his place in history. But Australia lost the first two Tests in India, before Cummins flew home to be with his mother, Maria, who was ill with cancer; she died soon after.

Victory over India at The Oval was solid preparation for the Ashes, but when Cummins posted a deep point for the first ball of the series, which was hammered through the covers by Zak Crawley, it was widely agreed Australia had blinked first as they squared up to Bazball England.

Had Ben Stokes’s side translated a strong position on the final evening into victory, this series might have developed another narrative. Instead, Cummins’s next challenge came after he declined, with good reason, to withdraw the stumping appeal against Bairstow.

He is used to culture warfare: critics in Australia deride him as ‘woke’ because he believes in climate change. Now, he got it in the neck from those who believed he had transgressed the spirit of cricket — and at Lord’s, no less.

Jonny Bairstow (middle) was controversially dismissed on Day 5 of the second Test at Lord’s

Captain Cummins said he believed Australia had done nothing wrong at Lord’s

As Cummins took pre-match questions on the subject, it was clear he remained baffled by the idea he had any kind of case to answer. Did he regret not recalling Bairstow? No. Would he do it again? Yes. Did he believe in the spirit of cricket? Yes, but it all depends…

And if, at times, the Hollywood smile yielded to a clenched jaw, Australia can argue it was about as tetchy as he gets.

Above all, Cummins has underlined his status as a giant of the modern era. A string of stress fractures meant a wait of five-and-a-half years between his first Test, when he took a six-for aged 18, and his second. And since that second game, in March 2017, only team-mate Nathan Lyon has taken more than his 228 Test wickets — and Lyon has bowled 700 more overs for his haul of 255.

If Cummins’s team win this game, or any of the final two Tests of the series, he will be the first Australia captain to claim a series victory in England for 22 years. Not a bad prize to wave at his detractors on both sides of the Ashes divide.

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