Australian pacer Pat Cummins is famous for his use of field placements to scalp wickets rather than going for the traditional ways of dismissals like clean bowled, LBWs etc. With his exploits, Cummins has become one of the chief bowlers in the arsenal of the Australians.
The right-arm speedster has bagged 164 wickets in 34 matches at a considerably low economy rate of 2.74 and taken 111 and 27 wickets from 69 ODIs and 30 T20Is. Overall, Cummins has been a match-winner for his side.
In a recent question and answer session on his Youtube channel, when asked about the most difficult batsman he had ever bowled to, Cummins mentioned Joe Root and Ben Stokes from England, Cheteshwar Puajara and Virat Kohli from India, Kane Williamson from New Zealand, Babar Azam from Pakistan, AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis from South Africa.
“You talk about Joe Root and Ben Stokes from England. Then obviously, Pujara and Virat [Kohli] from India. You have got Kane Williamson and Babar Azam. In South Africa, there was AB de Villiers and Faf [du Plessis] is there. Every team has a couple of guys who are the prized wickets,” the New South Wales cricketer remarked.
There were also questions regarding Indian pitches, especially the tracks at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, that raised many eyebrows during the England tour of India 2021 as they seemed to favour spin over pacers. Responding to the same, Cummins asserted that sub-continental pitches are either spin-friendly or flat. He further enunciated that in such conditions, the bowler’s role is to restrict runs and build pressure.
“My opinion is probably different to that of a lot of batsmen around the world. Sometimes they are spin-friendly but otherwise, they are pretty flat. There is not as much pace and bounce as you might find in Australia or South Africa or as much seam and swing as in England. But it is a challenge and you need to adjust to that. Your role may be that of keeping the runs per over as low as possible,” the Westmead-born concluded.
Cummins was last seen in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021, where he took nine wickets from seven matches and smashed 93 runs.
