The Australian captain described the ODI World Cup win as the pinnacle of his career and he will remember this moment for the rest of his life.
Osman Samiuddin
What makes Travis Head so good? Cummins explains
“Travis Head epitomizes everything you need for a cricket team,” says Cummins.
What started as a challenging year for Pat Cummins and Australia has ended with absolute glory, the kind of year that could be up there with some of the best years of this century for any Australian side. It started with a respectable Test series defeat in India and ended with a spectacular World Cup win in India itself. During this time he, without even thinking, became World Test Champion and retained the Ashes in England.
However Cummins had no doubt that a sixth World Cup win, despite very high odds in the final against hosts and arch-rivals India, represented the “pinnacle” of his achievements.
“It’s huge, I think it’s the pinnacle of international cricket, winning the One-Day World Cup,” Cummins said, about an hour after Glenn Maxwell scored the winning run to wrap up an emphatic six-wicket win in Ahmedabad. .
“Especially here in India, in front of such a crowd. Yes, it’s huge. Yes, it’s been a big year for everyone, but our cricket team has been here in India, the Ashes, the World Test Championship And besides it is huge. These are the moments you will remember for the rest of your life.
“It’s just that every international team comes together. You only get one chance every four years. Even if you have a ten-year career, you only get two chances at it. And yes, that’s just the whole of cricket. It’s the world. This World Cup. So, it can’t get any better than this.”
Cummins had talked about silencing the big crowd before the match and his team did the same throughout the day. The bowlers were first to eliminate the flurry of boundaries imposed by India in the powerplay and restrict them to a record low of just four in the last 40 overs of the innings. And while he was batting, Travis Head single-handedly hit three more fours than the entire Indian batting order, each drowning out the noise of over 90,000, the majority of whom were Indian fans.
Cummins, by his own admission, was nervous while waiting for play to start this morning, walking towards the ground overlooking the blue sea as his team made their way there. But he was nervous when the game started, deciding to bowl first against the most dangerous batting line-up of the tournament and then bowl the ball himself.
His tournament with the ball has been indifferent, saving his best only for the times when it mattered most. By dismissing Virat Kohli in the 29th over, he presented a moment which stunned the crowd into silence.
“Yeah, we took a second to acknowledge the silence around the crowd,” he said. “It felt like it was one of those days when everything was built for him to score another century like he usually does, yes it was satisfying.”
He had a good day as captain, never allowing India to settle down and often rotating his bowlers after a spell of one over. By the 30-over mark of India’s innings, they had made 14 bowling changes, the joint-most by any side in this World Cup. No leadership decision would seem as right as keeping Head in the team despite his broken hand and not allowing him to play in their first five games and keeping Marnus Labuschagne in the eleven. Head played a match-winning inning of 137 runs in the final and Labuschagne played an unbeaten inning of 58 runs, and together they made a partnership of 192 runs. Despite concerns about the impact the midfield would have on Australia’s scoring rate, Labuschagne played throughout the tournament.
“We wanted to be very brave in this World Cup, we didn’t want to make any mistakes in the semi-finals, we wanted to be a team that could score 400 and you saw the kind of performance we did with Trav, (David) Warner and then (Mitchell) Marchi at number three,” Cummins said.
“We wanted to be really aggressive and then some of our all-rounders are obviously aggressive to finish the innings, so we would have preferred to fail in that way. But then Marnus showed his class and in South Africa you have to pick him “He was brilliant and he was playing in a different style to what he probably did in his first start in his ODI career. It was paying off and we know he is a gun so you have to try and find a place for him.” Will happen.
“And then there was Trav Head, we thought his World Cup was over. (After the injury) It didn’t happen until the next night, when Ronnie (coach Andrew MacDonald) came to me. He was like, ‘I have it’ I slept all night, I think we’re going to keep him. We’re going to take the risk. He could be right for the Netherlands and then if we’re going to the final and we want to win the World Cup I think he should be in the final. Need to be there for.
Cummins had played only two ODIs since November 2022 (and eight since November 2020) when the World Cup began. But he said he had rediscovered the joys of the format during the World Cup, and called for more games that matter. The future of ODIs is likely to be discussed at the ICC Board meeting in Ahmedabad this week, although no concrete decisions are expected.
“Maybe because we won, but I fell in love with ODI (cricket) again in this World Cup,” he said. “I think the scenario where every game really matters means it’s a little bit different than just a bilateral. So yeah, I don’t know. I mean, the World Cup has such a rich history, I’m sure it will be there for a long time.” Stick around for a while. There’s been a lot of amazing games, a lot of amazing stories over the last few months. So, I think there’s definitely a place there.”
Usman Samiuddin is senior editor at ESPNcricinfo