NEWS
Follow UsAustralia entered this T20 World Cup as one of the pre-tournament favorites, and, thus far, they’ve lived up to the tag. Five games into their campaign, the Kangaroos are unbeaten and have won each of their five games. They’ve barely even found themselves in trouble, let alone come close to losing a match.
An in-form Bangladesh could have been a potential banana peel fixture, but, on June 20 (Thursday), Australia produced yet another well-rounded showing to continue their dominance in the shortest format. The 2021 T20WC champions are now in the midst of an eight-match winning streak in all T20Is; it’s the joint-longest winning streak in their history.
In the aftermath of the Bangladesh win, a delighted Pat Cummins said that the Kangaroos, thus far, have managed to tick pretty much every box there is.
“We've kind of ticked off everything we have we could possibly do so far,” Cummins said.
“I thought tonight overall was a fairly polished performance, which is kind of what you want in super eights. Obviously, two points, but also to get a good run rate. And it feels like over the course of the tournament so far, just about everyone's had a game.
“We've used 12 or 13 players so far and everyone's had a couple of performances where they should take confidence out of it - yeah feel well positioned obviously doesn't mean that much but feels like we're in as good a place as we could be.”
On the night, Cummins took a three-wicket haul but it was not just any three wicket-haul. The right-armer’s three wickets came in consecutive deliveries, making him only the second Australian after Brett Lee to take a T20 World Cup hat-trick.
Cummins’ celebrations were muted after the hat-trick. The reason? He did not even realize that he had taken three in three.
“You give me too much credit because no, I didn't know I was on a hat-trick. I did the previous over, I saw it come up on the screen and by the time my next over came around I totally forgot about it. So, I think Stoinis ran in from the deep, was cheering and I was like, oh yeah, forgot about that. So, yeah, nice one,” Cummins said.
Against the Tigers, Cummins predominantly went short / back-of-a-length and it yielded him great success. The entire hat-trick, in fact, saw him bang the ball into the surface for all three dismissals.
The 31-year-old revealed that, the more they play, the easier it becomes for bowlers to understand what needs to be done to find success on specific surfaces.
“I mean, obviously across different islands, so each game has its own kind of little quirks,” Cummins said.
“The pitches are slightly different but I think you learn a general kind of methodology that kind of you fine-tune with each game so yeah, you're sequencing your execution of certain balls. You hope you get better and better and by the end of the tournament You've kind of got your game plan where you can give yourself as good a chance as you can.”
The Bangladesh clash also saw Mitchell Starc become the highest wicket-taker in white-ball World Cups, with the left-armer surpassing Lasith Malinga’s tally of 94 with the wicket of Tanzid Hasan.
What makes Starc the bowler so special?
“I think first of all probably just longevity,” Cummins said.
“It's not easy to play for a dozen years or so like he has, which he's been fit for all those tournaments so that's impressive and then obviously just being a strike weapon, he can tear teams apart in white ball tournaments he's got a lot of - kind of stood up when we needed to in big moments. So, I don't know, I guess he's just a class bowler who takes lots of wickets and has played for a while.”
The Australia Test and ODI skipper also lavished praise on David Warner, who took Australia home in the chase with a fantastic, quickfire fifty. Cummins said he’s been impressed by the way Warner has taken the attack to the bowlers from the get go, in this T20WC.
“It feels like every ICC event he's always up there in the runs tally,” Cummins said of Warner.
“I love the way he's been taking the game on, some big sixes even over the deep fielders. So, he's always got a huge appetite for runs, particularly in these tournaments. And whether it's knowing it's his last hurrah or whatever, he looks in great form and continues to play with that freedom, which is great.”
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