Forgot about bowling himself’ – Former Australia cricketer’s bold statement on Pat Cummins after his lack of overs in Delhi Test
Pat Cummins (Image source: Twitter)
Former Australian cricketer, Allan Border thinks that the series against India was Pat Cummins’ “first true test as captain,” and as a result, he under bowled himself in the second in Delhi. After losing the first two Tests in Nagpur and Delhi, Australia conceded the four-match Border Gavaskar Trophy series. Among the Australian playing XI for the six-wicket loss in Delhi, Cummins was the only fast. Before traveling to India, he had only lost one match as captain. He only bowled 13 overs during India’s first innings and none during their second.
“There were opportunities when things were starting to go stray, particularly in the Indian first innings when we had them on the ropes and they formed a good partnership, a couple of blasts from him running in and bowling some short stuff for two or three overs….” Australia had reduced India to 139 for 7 before Axar Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin shared a 114-run stand to take India to just one run short of the visiting team’s first-innings total,” Allan Border told SEN Radio.
He’s worried about lots of different things: Alan Border
“To me, the fast bowler, it’s always fraught with danger. I thought Pat grossly under-bowled himself in that Test match. There are other guys out on the field I suppose who could go to the captain and say, ‘mate, why don’t you have a bowl’? But I just thought this is Pat’s first real test as a captain, the rest has been plain sailing, you go to the sub-continent and all of a sudden you get tested out in all sorts of areas,” Border asserted.
“He’s worried about lots of different things, he forgot about himself bowling I think. That’s what can happen in those situations when your premier fast bowler is your captain. There is a lot going on, even if you’re the captain in those situations and you’re a batter. People don’t really appreciate how tough it is, it’s a really different place to play the game in the sub-continent. You’ve got to have your wits about you, that’s for sure… when it’s not going right and it’s going south, it goes south very quickly,” the Australian legend stated.
