Ashes 2019: Australia must now stay calm to ensure they are not haunted by Headingley miracle

On the way to the United Kingdom for the northern summer, the Australia squad spent a few days in Gallipoli to learn about the horrors of the Dardanelles campaign in 1915. When clumsily asked a question about how the lessons learned about that military conflict could be applied to the sporting fielding, Pat Cummins was suitably classy in response. On long days where the game wasn’t at all going their way, he explained, they would remember that cricket isn’t everything. It would help them maintain that perspective.

Of course, cricket trades in narrow margins. We are conditioned, thanks to the short-forms of the game, to the dramatic last-gasp finish. We know how that feels, especially when the ball is white – how to dust off and go again. But the risk for Australia is that this won’t be that due to the magnitude of the scarcely believable Headingley finale. The initial task might appear to be getting to the bottom of how it happened but it's far more important to get over it.

This is Justin Langer’s most important job over the coming days to help safeguard against this experience influencing the next in a detrimental way. Especially for Nathan Lyon, who was a clean pick-up away from icing the game. Twice an Ashes loser in this country in 2013 and 2015, today the off-spinner became Australia’s third most prolific bowler of all time, overtaking Dennis Lillee. But instead, he leaves Leeds the defining image of the loss.

The Australian coach sat on the team balcony on his own as the events of the afternoon got hotter and heavier. Perched on the edge of his seat like every other patron or viewer, by that stage there was nothing he could do other than take it in. There was no change he could make or message he could convey. But now it is all over, everything he says and does matters.

This was exactly what he managed, along with Tim Paine, during the lunch break preceding the session that will be talked about for decades. Despite getting rid of Joe Root early via a piece of brilliance from David Warner at slip – the product of relentless early pressure – the second hour of the day had gotten badly away from them. Against the new ball, England piled on 62 runs in ten overs. By contrast, they had added 32 in the previous 29. Stokes and Jonny Bairstow walked off with 121 left to get and brimming with belief. Game on.

Just 48 hours earlier at the corresponding interval, the Australian brains trust were being lauded as geniuses for their planning. A team that looked to have no right to win an Ashes series in England for the first time in 2001 were going to do it anyway. Now, they were a couple of hours away from it being 1981 all over again. But they kept it together. Jonny Bairstow was starved of oxygen; Jos Buttler was confused. Chris Woakes was exhausted. Jofra Archer and Stuart Broad followed. England lost 5/48 after lunch as a result of an incredibly impressive hour of bowling when needing to keep their cool.

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Sure, what happened next will be documented for decades: books written and films made and all the rest. The narrative will be that of brilliant Stokes and brave Leach, as it should. But Paine already knows that on two occasions calm wasn’t maintained in that very modern conundrum for fielding captains: the DRS. On Saturday, desperate for a third wicket when Joe Root and Denly were ticking over, one referral was burned on a leg before shout that never looked geometrically possible with Lyon’s turn. With eight runs still to get when Stokes was flying, Paine and Cummins had a dart for a ball that pitched six inches outside leg. Desperately unlucky as they were that Joel Wilson didn’t raise his finger when he should have with two runs to win, they had essentially brought that part of it on themselves.

Where the throws at the death of the World Cup Final to Trent Boult were accurate enough for the bowler to do the job at the non-strikers’ end, that Lyon needed to grasp an inaccurate half-volley from Cummins must not be forgotten. The image of Paine running towards his spinner with a smile on his face before the ball ran away safely is the sort of moment that can haunt all involved. But it happens. This is cricket – almost always a scrappy sport.

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In 1981, Australia went to Birmingham after the (first) Headingley Miracle and were again well ahead in the Test, needing 151 to retain the Ashes after their earlier Yorkshire stumble. But a big all-rounder at the peak of his powers with a beard and a temper decided otherwise, taking 5/1 to uproot the visitors an agonising 30 runs short. It has never been forgotten by those involved. Stokes will intervene again before this series is out – he doesn’t know any other way. It’s how Paine and co respond to this adversity that will determine whether they can find a way through at Manchester or London. For that, they have to keep perspective.