England are finally on the board in The Ashes with the nation securing their first win of the series after successfully getting Australian captain Pat Cummins ruled out of the 2nd Test at Adelaide Oval after their army of COVID-infected stalkers finally got close enough to him to have him ruled out. 

The stalkers are believed to have been employed by England’s Barmy Army to contract COVID-19 amongst themselves and then try to get as close to members of the Australian Test team as possible, before taking a COVID test themselves. 

The win comes after Cummins was out at dinner on Wednesday evening with one of the stalkers securing the plumb table next to Cummins. Following the meal, the stalker visited an Adelaide testing site, and was quick to confirm he sat right next to Cummins just one hour ago, thus ruling the skipper out as a ‘close contact’ of an infected person.  

“It’s been a few dry summers down here for the lads so we just wanted to help where we could to give us a better chance,” said a member of the Barmy Army who wished not to be identified.

“It’s good to get a win for the motherland because it just didn’t look like Joe [Root, England Captain] was going to get it done when he blew the toss in the first Test before we got clean-bowled first ball.” 

The sidelining of Cummins comes after numerous other novelty attempts believed to have stemmed from the Barmy Army include delivering COVID-infected gifts to Australian locker rooms which were promptly rejected. 

With this small win likely to be the only one secured by the English for the series, the Barmy Army were spotted around Adelaide chanting “Cummins is Home”, believed to be a new mutation of the more well known “Its Coming Home” chant.