There is a degree of inevitability about Australia in Test cricket.
Pakistan has played exceptionally in Melbourne, taking the fight to Australia at every opportunity with bat and ball.
But no matter how tough things got, Australia always had an answer.
“It’s just what happens. Pat Cummins and Australia, they just know,” former England captain Michael Vaughan said.
“They have that mentality of producing performances when it matters.”
In truth, not many people expected it to matter against Pakistan, a team that had unfairly been dismissed as cannon fodder ahead of this summer of cricket.
But that Australian mentality mattered in this Test match.
Look at what happened on day three, when the hosts were stunningly reduced to 4-16.
Australia needed a partnership, so Steve Smith and Mitch Marsh delivered one.
No matter that 4-16 was the lowest base score from which a fifth-wicket partnership has delivered a century in Test cricket history.
No matter that Mir Hamza was having the best Test of his short career, swinging the ball in and out and asking questions with every delivery, aided and abetted by Shaheen Shah Afridi, Hassan Ali and Aamir Jamal.
Australia simply found a way, found the composure to ride out the storm and rethink its options in order to move forward.
There was luck. Wasn’t there a whole lot of luck?
The frankly shocking drop of Marsh on 20 by Abdullah Shafique cost Pakistan a whopping 76 runs and all the initiative it had built up.
But the point is that Australia, somehow, got through it.
The same thing happened on day four with the ball.
“They just know how to get that key wicket at the key moment. They have that switch,” Vaughan said.
Shan Masood was more blunt.
“They’re ruthless,” he said.
After the early wickets of the unfortunate Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq, Masood himself took on the challenge and was driving Pakistan forward with a 61-run partnership with Babar Azam.
But Cummins was never going to let Pakistan get too far away.
If Cummins was unlikeable you could confer on him the title of Thanos, a comic book god with a desire to obliterate everything in his path.
Much like Thanos in the Marvel films, he is inevitable, possessing the ability to click his fingers and evaporate half the opposition batting line-up with a disarming smile and lightning swing of his pacy right arm.
That’s what he did on day four at the MCG, his second five-fa in the match to record just his second 10-wicket haul in a single Test.
Masood was looking immensely confident in passing 50 at almost a run a ball.
Cummins brought himself on and, just like that, the Pakistan skipper was on his way, caught brilliantly by Smith.
It was akin to his field change to effect dismissals earlier in the Test. And other times he has come on to change the tenor of a Test with his ability.
“When we were leading with the bat … Pat Cummins came in with that spell,” Masood said.
“That’s why he is one of the best bowlers in the world.”
One of the best? You’d be hard pressed to find another who can hold a candle to his brilliance when he’s at his best.
But he obviously cannot do it alone, and that catch by Smith was a big part of the story in this most enthralling of Test matches.
To win a Test in Australia, opposition teams need to be perfect, especially in the big moments.
Pakistan, patently, was not — even if it certainly had its moments.
“There are a lot of positives,” Masood said following the defeat.
“But if you give a quality side like Australia a sniff, which we did, maybe sometimes with the ball, maybe sometimes with the bat, yesterday in the field … we might not have been chasing 317 today.”
That much is almost certain.
Shafique’s two costly drops at slip in this match — Warner in the first innings, Marsh in the second — cost Pakistan 112 runs in the Test.
One doesn’t even need to add the 52 first-innings extras (an MCG record) to know that Pakistan could have won that Test.
But, the way Australia plays, perhaps that wouldn’t have even happened.
“Even at 4-16, the dressing-room was really calm,” Cummins said at the close.
“We knew someone was going to step up and it was going to be their day.
“It’s just real trust and support in the dressing-room for each other.
“Every week it feels like another matchwinner stands up.”
This week, as is the case in so many other weeks this year, that matchwinner was Cummins.
In the end, despite Pakistan taking the game to Australia, its unenviable winless run in the country continues.
But victory at the MCG would have been a remarkable feat in itself.
Overall, Australia’s line-up had 766 caps between them in Test cricket. Pakistan’s had just 229.
Pakistan will end the year having played just five Tests, its lowest total of Test matches in a calendar year since 1991 — aside from the COVID-impacted 2020 season.
Australia has played more Tests than any other team in 2023 with 13. England and India are tied for second most, with eight each.
The Aussies are battle hardened and vastly experienced. Pakistan is having to learn on the run.
And they’ve proven to be fast learners.
Good job captain Cummins was on hand to help steer the ship into calmer waters.
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