“I wanted Steve to be vice-captain”: Pat Cummins defends Steve Smith’s vice-captain role ahead of the Ashes

The Ashes: Pat Cummins defends the decision of appointing Steve Smith as the VC and explains Smith’s importance in the leadership role.

After all the speculations, Pat Cummins is the new test captain of Australia. He will be Australia’s 47th test captain, whereas he is the first pacer to lead Australia in 65 years. Steve Smith is the new vice-captain, and he is formally back in the leadership role. The last week has not been great for Australian cricket. Tim Paine stepped down as the captain of the side and now has taken an indefinite break from cricket.

Ricky Ponting raised his concerns about Pat Cummins’ leadership as a fast bowler. Even some former pointed that the appointment of Steve Smith as VC can be a distraction for the side. Cummins addressed the media and answered all the questions.

The Ashes: Pat Cummins explains the importance of Steve Smith as vice-captain

Pat Cummins took the call of appointing Steve Smith as the vice-captain of the side. He has defended Smith and also talked about the aspect of a pacer leading the test side.

“I think there’s a couple of more unknowns about having a bowling captain,” Cummins said.

“That’s why I think from the outset, I was absolutely determined that if I was captain, I wanted to have someone like Steve as vice-captain next to me.”

#BREAKING: Pat Cummins has been appointed as the new captain of the Australian Men’s Test Cricket team.

Former skipper Steve Smith will act as the fast bowler’s deputy, following Tim Paine’s shock resignation last week.#9News | Nightly at 6pm pic.twitter.com/RBNcKHiV3b

— 9News Australia (@9NewsAUS) November 26, 2021

Cummins insists that as a pace bowler, he may need some break after bowling a lot of overs. That’s why he wants someone like Steve Smith to take advice from in the middle.

“I think one of the big reasons why there’s been talk around fast bowlers not being able to captain in the past is just the workload issue. There’s going to be times where I’m out in the middle, it’s a hot day, I’m in the middle of a spell, and I need turn to people for advice, for tactics and for experiencing.”

“That’s one of the big reasons why I wanted Steve to be vice-captain.”

“He’s [Smith] so central to how I see my captaincy style, but how I see the team functioning so we both got a chance to think quite a lot about it over the last few days before we presented to a couple of board members and selectors.”

The first Ashes test is set to start from 8th December 2021 at the Gabba in Brisbane.