‘Whatever you do, you’ve got to do it well’ – Pat Cummins on varied Indian pitches of ODI World Cup 2023
Pat Cummins (Source: Twitter)
The Australian cricket team’s captain Pat Cummins recently got candid and talked about the varied pitches in India from north to South parts of the country. He compared the pitch of Delhi to that of Chennai. Cummins said it doesn’t matter if you bat or bowl first in India, all you have to do is perform well in both the innings.
The most successful team in the ODI World Cup tournament, Australia have had the worst start in the 2023 season since they lost their first two games against India and South Africa by huge margins and have dropped down to the 9th spot on the points table.
“You’ve still got to assess conditions, India is a big country. Chennai is a long way away from say, up north like Delhi or somewhere like that. There are big differences, it’s not a perfect science. Most games are 50-50 whether you bat first or bowl first. Whatever you do, you’ve got to do it well”, said Pat Cummins.
Pat Cummins on playing ODI World Cup 2023 in India
“It’s a tricky one, Even ODI cricket compared to T20s. (They’re) played (with) half the game in daylight and half at night so it’s a bit different to T20 cricket. I find these wickets sometimes hard to read as well. Sometimes they look terrible and play beautifully and (also) the opposite, sometimes it looks flat and they end up spinning, so it is tough. You’ve just got to adapt on the fly,” he added.
In the post-match ceremony after being defeated by South Africa, Australian skipper Pat Cummins said, “I thought Quinton (de Kock) batted well, couldn’t get a breakthrough. From where they were, we were quite happy with 310 and thought it was chaseable. Looked like hard work out there tonight, their bowlers bowled well, think it nipped around a bit more under lights. (On if it would’ve been easier to bat first) Hard to say, that if we want to be challenging in this tournament we need to find ways of performing regardless of batting first or second. Don’t think much needs to be said tonight, everyone’s hurting, we’ll try and take a couple of days off and then make amends to come back stronger in the next one. There’s a few things we need to tidy up.”
