Anandha Natarajan and Lakshmi Narashiman

“You’ve got to be up for it, you’ve got to love it, and just know whatever happens it’s fine, but you just want to finish the day with no regrets”

Pat cummins

Stepping into 2024, all I was wishing for was to have a year like Pat Cummins had on the field in 2023. Greedy? A little or perhaps a bit too greedy.  The man led his country to a WTC title, an away Ashes retention, a victorious ODI World Cup campaign in India and then marched into 2024 with a match winning 10-fer in the Boxing Day Test. And the cherry on the top was the 20.5 Cr IPL Contract for the upcoming season.

After the Tim Paine saga, Australia were looking for an inspiring captain and they promoted one of his deputies, Cummins – just a couple of weeks before the home Ashes series in the summer of 2021.  He started well with a 4-0 win over the English. Though many experts and former cricketers raised concerns about his ability to lead, he kept proving his worth, inspiring his teammates and gathering more (Aussie & worldwide) fan support along the way.

Cummins doesn’t really give us that vibe of a typical Australian Captain: on your face, super aggressive, “we’re going to get you” type. He was previously seen as just someone with a pretty face and a good sense of humor. As a captain, he mostly lets the game do the talking and stands by his teammates both on and off the field. More importantly, he has proved that he can keep the group together, regardless of whether things go well or not. 

If we dig through the stats, it’s not hard to notice that his impact as a strike bowler has dimmed a little ever since he assumed captaincy. But if you happen to watch the way he goes about his bowling, it’s a great sight. He knows exactly when to keep it tight, when to attack and also when to take himself out of the attack. The epitome of his bowling during his captaincy tenure till now has to be the 2023 World Cup Final where he knocked over Virat Kohli after getting the whole of India to talk about him for his press conference.

The Australian test team had a brilliant 2022 as well. An away win in Pakistan and an away draw in Sri Lanka and a couple of comfortable series wins at home. 2023 was even better. But, it just didn’t have a rosy beginning. The first test series loss as captain came at the hands of India, who have won 4 BGTs on the trot, by this point. It didn’t start on a great note for Cummins personally too, as he had to leave BGT halfway through the series due to his mother’s demise. After losing two consecutive matches under Cummins, Australia won one and drew another under Smith to end the series 1-2 and to set up a mouth watering WTC final at the Oval. 

The year only gets better from here. After opting out of the IPL because of the packed Australian winter, Cummins came back and got his first highlight of the year as Australia easily breezed past the injury-hit Indian team in the final. Head and Smith played outstanding knocks to set up a good win for the team in a rather one sided contest. All the talk now shifted to Ashes and to the new England team under Stokes-Mccullum. Every commentator and expert alike, wanted England to showcase ‘Bazball’ against Australia. 

Australia started well, winning 2 games, with both having its fair share of drama, England fought back to win the third test, but luckily for them, the fourth test was washed out due to rain and just like that, Australia retained the Ashes away from home. England did win the last test to level the series, but it didn’t matter. The whole of the Australian team starred well – handy contributions from all batters and bowlers, the resurgence of Starc as a test bowler and a fairytale return to test cricket at England for Khawaja. Cummins went back home to take a break after leading his team in 6 test matches in a span of 7 weeks.

The Australian team had a disastrous white ball leg in South Africa and a not so convincing ODI series in India just before the world cup. And sadly for them, the first two matches in the World Cup were against these two teams and they lost both the games comprehensively. The mighty Australian team was sitting last on the points table and the media was talking not just about Cummins’ captaincy, but also his place in the ODI side. From there on, Cummins and the management did a near impeccable job, winning 9 games on the trot. Zampa acting as the sole spinner, Inglis turning up out of nowhere, Maxwell doing the things only he can do, and an ever so consistent Warner, all these pulled the team into the knockouts. With brilliant bowling overall and a good innings from Head, Australia stormed their way to the finals. 

Cummins spoke at the press conference before the World cup final and said, “In sport there’s nothing more satisfying than hearing a big crowd go silent and that’s the aim for us tomorrow”. 

Boy, oh boy, they did just that at the Narendra Modi stadium in front of 130,000 Indian fans. You could hear a pin drop when he scalped the big wicket of Virat Kohli, who was the leading run scorer of the tournament, and at that point, critical to the hosts’ hopes of setting a competitive target. It was Cummins’ show at the toss and on the field as captain, Cummins’ show with the ball and Head’s show with the bat as Aussies sealed their sixth ODI WC title. Every Indian and cricket fans world over will remember this line for a very long time. 

After capping off an amazing winter outside the Australian continent, Cummins returned home and sitting there, managed to steal another huge limelight from India. As expected, he broke all the previous records in IPL Auction history, only for the record to be broken within an hour by his teammate and close friend, Starc. A WC win, complemented by a 45 Cr salary ain’t a bad takeaway for them after all xD.

To Patrick James Cummins – Congratulations on a 59-wicket, 422-run international cricket season and of course, for all the coveted trophies you got to hold this year!!