New captain at the wheel.

©SkySports

So the Ashes season is here, the cricket’s oldest rivalry, the fight for the urn. Australia managed to retain the urn at the Old Blighty in 2019 following a two-all draw. This series has had all the buildup to be good even contest, with England having their own problems, are they overdependent on Joe Root?, will Anderson and Broad survive the full series? , while Australia on the other hand has a new captain, a debutant keeper and are yet to settle in on an opening pair.

With Pat Cummins thrust into the hot seat of captaincy, post the Tim Paine controversial exit, let’s look into how Aussie captains have fared on their captaincy debut and also on their Ashes captaincy debut

Among the last 10 full-time captains, starting from Ian Chappell to Tim Paine, only two of them have had their captaincy debut in an Ashes contest and surprisingly on both occasions they have gone to lose the test match, Ian Chappell and Michael Clarke being the captains and on both occasions, Sydney being the venue, this doesn’t bode well for Australia or Pat Cummins.

Greg Chappell, Kim Hughes, Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Steve Smith, Tim Paine have all won their first Ashes encounter as a captain.

Allan border has a strange stat alongside him, he has lost his first game as a captain and also his first Ashes game as a captain later, while Mark Taylor and Tim Paine though lost on their captaincy debut, managed to win their first Ashes game as a captain.

It is refreshing to see a bowler walking out for the toss, only a handful of bowlers have captained their national sides in the recent past, sometimes as a stop-gap measure waiting until for a batsman in their ranks to fill his boots with runs to be the next ascendant to the throne.

On a positive note, I hope Pat Cummins goes on to have all the success he deserves as Australia’s new captain and stakes a claim for bowlers to be regular full-time captains.