Pat Cummins has put to bed any lingering doubts about his ability to handle the captaincy while also being Australia’s premier fast bowler. Cummins saved his best till last with brave and decisive captaincy combined with ever improving personal performances.
His decision to bowl against an unbeaten, and seemingly impregnable, India when they had dominated the competition batting first proved a stroke of genius. India succumbed to the pressure as Cummins played a central role with the ball, claiming the important wickets of the explosive Shreyas Iyer and Virat Kohli while conceding just 34 runs from his 10 overs, writes Malcom Corn for 'Sydney Morning Herald'.
Questions were being asked about whether Australia were roasting their golden goose by lumping too much on Cummins’ plate. For his part, he remained as phlegmatic as ever, saying he was comfortable in the role. The questions, however, continued as a lethargic Australia were thumped in their opening two matches World Cup matches against India and South Africa.
But despite the background noise whenever the players talked about Cummins, the central theme was, and still is, his calmness – not a quality always associated with Australian teams. Dressing rooms can be crowded and uncomfortable places, occupied by people with strong egos and emotions.
Calmness is a vital ingredient for sustained success.
"....With the return of Travis Head from a broken wrist midway through the tournament, Warner became sideshow Dave. Head announced his return with 109 from 67 balls against New Zealand, the first of three man-of-the-match awards, including in the semi-final and final.
Of the eight centuries scored by Australians, five were scored by openers, two by Warner, two by Head, and one by Marsh, who also made a second century batting at No.3 against Bangladesh.
The coach and selectors
Rarely can a team’s backroom staff have had such a big impact on a World Cup campaign as coach Andrew McDonald and chairman of selectors George Bailey, who was with the team the whole time.
Captain Cummins talks about how McDonald came to him the day after Travis Head sustained a broken wrist on a one-day tour of South Africa just two weeks out from the tournament. The coach hadn’t slept before deciding they would keep Head in the squad.
This had a significant knock-on impact. Marnus Labuschagne, who had been left out of Australia’s original 18-man preliminary squad, was sudden shoe-horned into the final 15-man squad after good form in South Africa, playing as a concussion sub for Cameron Green. With Ashton Agar ruled out because of a calf strain, this meant Australia were substituting a batsman for a spinner, leaving Adam Zampa as the team’s only frontline spinner in the squad, in India of all places. Some commentators called this brave, others fool hardly.
The Spinner ::: ‘It was tough’: How Zampa’s red-ball struggles made him a white-ball star
Like Travis Head, Zampa repaid the faith of the selectors in spades. Struggling with shoulder and neck problems and feeling ill, Zampa was pivotal in Australia’s first victory of the campaign, claiming 4-47 to be player of the match as Sri Lanka collapsed from 0-125 to be all out 209.
Zampa went on to claim four wickets in three consecutive games and became the first player in World Cup history to take three wickets or more in five consecutive games.
He was also player of the match against England with 3-21 and went on to equal the record of 23 wickets for a spinner in a World Cup set by Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan in 2007.
If there is one word that sums up Australia’s campaign it is brave.
Brave at the selection table, brave captaincy by Cummins after two losses, and brave batting to keep taking the game on. This World Cup triumph was a win for the ages.
".....an equally important and much underrated part of his game was Maxwell’s off-spin as Australia’s de facto second spinner. He bowled 68.3 overs to be Australia’s genuine fifth bowler, conceding under five runs an over, equal with Josh Hazlewood as the best in the team.
And he deceived rampant Indian captain Rohit Sharma in the final to have him brilliantly caught by Head, changing the course of the game."
Tail Piece :
Rohit hit three sixes and four fours in his 31-ball 47-run knock. After his fall, India managed only four more fours in the next 40 overs - the lowest in a completed innings of 50 overs in more than a decade. That's how crucial Rohit's wicket was.
"He’s (Rohit Sharma) probably the unluckiest man in the world," Head said in the post-match ceremony about the Indian captain, who could barely hold on to his tears after Maxwell hit the winning runs.
"Again, it's (fielding) something that I worked hard on. I couldn't imagine getting a hundred, couldn't probably imagine holding onto that one. Was great to hold on to that catch," Head said about that catch.
ends
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