The Ascendancy of Pat Cummins: How He Quietened India’s Cricketing Titans in the world cup 2023
Biggest sporting cauldrons in the world. There’s 100,000 people, more or less, in the crowd, expecting to be cheering India as the champions. What’s going through your head as you walk onto the pitch? Shut them all up. Basically , if we hear a silence, that’s gonna be satisfying. The stage is set for one of the biggest sporting events of them all, and Australia has the impossible task of taking the title from a super team that has gone undefeated for the entire group stage at their home ground. Most cricketers would be terrified to lead this team against the men in blue, but Pat Cummins is not like most men. He just strolled up to the field the day before the match in stylish Ray-Bans and planned out a strategy and win his country a record sixth World Cup title.
Today, We’ll be taking a look at how the mastermind behind Australia’s World Cup victory. Patrick James Cummins, won a World Cup final against all odds, silencing the entire stadium. His story starts in the small town of Mount Riverview. He wasn’t related to any famous cricketers. His family wasn’t super rich. That was just your average Aussie kid, playing in his backyard and idolizing Brett Lee. Even though he was blessed with a great amount of talent, he was cursed with an arguably equal amount of bad luck. When he was only three years old, Pat lost the top of his middle finger on his right hand. This was the first of many injuries that slowed down an already amazing career. Pat Cummins started shining from a very young age.
On his test debut, Cummins wowed the crowds with the figures 38 runs for one wicket and 79 runs for seven wickets. Not only that, but he hit the match-winning boundary of the match. For his heroics, he won the Player of the Match award. Unfortunately, this happiness would be short-lived. You see, he played the match we just spoke about with a heel injury, and this resulted in him not being able to play for the rest of the 2011-12 season. To understand why he picked up this injury, you need to know a little bit about his play style. Pat Cummins is a right arm fast bowler who maintains a consistent line and length and bowls with great accuracy. This means that he really is a threat to any batsman.
His idol Brett Lee pointed out the specialty of his steep bouncer and complimented his wrist flick motion. He was extremely impressed by the fact that Cummins could swing a new ball either way. Cummins relies on having a good run and tries to hit the off stump. In his own words, even on a bad day, he wants some bounce and pace on the ball. On good days, he’ll up the pace and add in significant amount of swing. All this skill put an awful lot of pressure on his body and hence, he picked up several injuries over his career including heel injuries and stress fractures on his back. Sick of those frequent injuries hindering his career, Cummins enlisted the help of renowned fast bowler Dennis Lillee.
Lillee quickly spotted an issue in his run-up and helped him alter his bowling action and form. With the proper guidance and coaching, Cummins sped up his return to test cricket, while continuing to impress with the white ball, even playing a role in the World Cup win in 2015. Part of the reason why Cummins was recovering so quickly is due to his enthusiasm and hard work. Brad Haddin even labeled him as a quick learner. This ability to learn quickly may be how he understands the opponent’s weaknesses so fast. But little did the world know, he’s going to make the most glorious comeback in the history of cricket. After a five and a half year gap, Cummins was back in the team in 2017. Cummins played a key role in the Asher series held in Australia in 2017 to 2018.
He showcased his skills as a fast bowler, consistently troubling the English batsman with his pace and bounce. sure enough, he became a key player in Australia’s test team, consistently delivering strong performances with both bat and ball. Cummins achieved the milestone of taking 50 test wickets in just 13 matches, making him the fastest Australian fast bowler to reach that mark at the time. The world had started to take notice of Cummins. In 2019, he received the Allan Border Medal for being Australia’s best male cricketer. The Young Cricketer of the Year award and the ICC Men’s Test Cricketer of the Year award in 2021, he was part of the Australia team that won the T20 World Cup, picking up his second international trophy. By late 2021, Cummins had established himself as a big name in the cricketing world.
By this time, he also created a strong bond with his team. Even though he wasn’t very talkative, he was still approachable and friendly. This made him pretty well liked around the camp. He also has an incredible ability to keep his calm on the field, carefully calculating each move and reading the game really well. His down-to-earth personality and generally high intellect made him a leader in the dressing room and a natural choice for captain. So, in 2021, he was announced as test captain, becoming the first fast bowler full-time captain for Australia in history. He started his journey off with a bang, crushing a World Cup-winning England side 4-0 in Ashes 21-22. As if that wasn’t enough, he went on to win the ICC World Test Championship Final 2023.
He played this tournament right after his mother passed away from cancer, showing yet again his resilience and commitment to the game. With such a strong performance, it was only natural that after Aaron Finch’s retirement, Cummins led the Australian side to the 2023 World Cup. No one would fault Australian fans for not holding out too much hope prior to the World Cup. Cummins had just been captain for two ODI fixtures prior to the World Cup, making him the least experienced leader in the tournament. On top of that, they had to face an Indian super team on home soil. As everyone had expected, Australia did not start the tournament well, losing both their first games and winding up at the bottom of the group. But this is where Cummins’ resolve made him the man for the job.
The Kangaroos pushed through like a hurricane, defeating every opponent by totally outclassing them. Such as the record 309 run win against Netherlands, or through sheer will, such as Maxwell’s magical 201 knockout against Afghanistan. Through what seemed like a miracle, they made it past the group stage and defeated South Africa in the semi-final. Cummins had done a great job thus far as both player and captain. He not only performed his duties as a bowler, but also provided stability in the lower order when Australia needed it. such as against Afghanistan in the group stages or South Africa in the semis. As captain, his field setting was picture perfect and his bowling selection also made a lot of sense. But Australian fans did not start celebrating yet.
In sharp contrast to Australia’s shaky campaign, India absolutely dominated all their opponents in each and every match. And again, the final would be in India. Rohit Sharma looked all but certain to lift the trophy. However, Pat Cummins remained confident in his team’s abilities and gave one of the most iconic press conferences in the history of the sport. As we’re sure you can already tell, Cummins took a great deal of preparation for this match. Photos of him clicking pictures of the pitch went viral on social media, and it became the focus of many memes. However, there was a reason behind this weird move. Pictures of the pitch are a great tool for planning out the strategy for the match, and it also allowed the captain to discuss the pitch thoroughly in the dressing room.
In the end, understanding how to play on the slow, dry pitch is what got them the win. This wouldn’t be the only odd decision he would take. However, the natural reaction to his Indian team is fear, so the last thing you’d want to do is let them see a huge target and wave goodbye to the trophy, right? Well, not according to Cummins. After winning the toss, Cummins surprisingly decided to bowl first, a decision for which he was even criticized by some fans. It turns out, Cummins knew exactly what he was doing. In this match, you truly understand why Cummins deserves to be called a mastermind. His selection of bowlers slowed down the run rate when they needed it to be low, and his field setting meant that there was no huge gaps for the men in blue to exploit.
However, the match didn’t start off according to plan. You can set a field as nicely as you like, but when Rohit Sharma is batting, it’s going to rain sixes, and that’s exactly what happened for the first 10 overs. and it’s so far back. India had exceeded a run rate of seven before the eighth over, and that’s when Cummins showed his first sign of tactical brilliance. Seeing India’s hurry to get a big total down, he realized he had the perfect opportunity to put Rohit Sharma in a trap. In the eighth over, he introduced right arm off spinner Maxwell to tease the hitman to play big shots. He fell for it, as by the time the tenth over was finished, India lost their captain.
As if that wasn’t enough of a blow, in the very next over, Cummins himself took the wicket of heavy hitter Shreyas Iyer. The danger was far from over. The new man, KL Rahul, is a great batsman in his own right and King Kohli was still on the pitch. But it seemed Cummins didn’t care who was on the pitch. They played by his rules. Cummins ensured that no two consecutive players stood in the same circle. When Long On was on, mid-wicket was down. When mid-wicket was up, Long On was down. He set the field in this way to make sure that there was no clear long width to push for singles and brought the run rate down between 2-3 runs and over. At this point, batsmen were getting more cautious but also frustrated.
This is where we see him using his genius cricketing sense again. The moment he saw the run rate dip to a low level, he saved his main bowlers for later overs and deployed batting all-rounders Marsh, Maxwell, and Head. His thinking was that either they play too cautiously and keep the run rate low, or play rash shots and get out. He reintroduced his best bowlers during the 27th over, which is a transitional phase. Stalling wasn’t enough. They just had to take the wicket of the player of the tournament, Virat Kohli. And guess who took him down? That’s right, cometh the hour, cometh the man. Cummins took the most important wicket of them all. Seeing him struggle with short balls, Cummins constantly played short deliveries, till one of them hit the inside edge.
From that point on, the game was in Australia’s hands. Cummins saved his best bowlers for the end who were effectively facing lower order batsmen. He also placed all of his fielders closer to the boundaries to lure the tail-enders to hit big shots or just do singles. India was in a chokehold. His two wickets with an economy of just 3.4 helped keep India’s total to just 240. A total Australia chased down with six wickets to spare thanks to a wonderful knock. With that, Cummins won his nation the greatest honor. He silenced the crowd at Narendra Modi Stadium and all his critics with a stroke of genius that the cricket world will never forget. Pat Cummins proved his caliber as one of the greatest captains who led the most feared team in cricket history.
The mastermind behind Team Australia’s World Cup win against all odds will forever be cherished in the golden pages of cricket history. Champions. One and all.