It’s him, again. Name every major cricket tournament played last year and find him taking the silverware back home along with him. The mace, the urn, and the World Cup, all rest in his trove. Pat Cummins stamps the year 2023 as his own by being named Wisden’s leading cricketer of the year. He is like that annoying kid in your class who somehow manages to ace everything he decides to participate in.
Want to get the other team out? Fret not, he has the tricks to do just that. Need someone to captain the team when the previous two skippers have disgraced their way out? Though he is a pacer, he will do the job just the same (spoiler alert: will do even better). The team is in a tight spot and needs a late-innings cameo? You won’t believe who is up for this job. Told you, he is that annoying kid. Except he is not annoying. He has that sweet-as-sugar smile on his face, which he very proudly wears while handing the opposition their worst trauma of life.
Triumphs of Pat Cummins in 2023
WTC Final 2023
Australia’s winning streak last year started with the World Test Championship Final. Almost three months after the Aussies were thumped by India in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, they outshined them on a stage where it mattered more. Besides his brilliant bowling, especially in the first innings of the finals, Cummins’ captaincy helped the baggy Greens get the last laugh. But this triumph did not start in English Summer at The Oval, throughout the Championship the Australian side was a beast, thanks again in big part to Pat’s captaincy and bowling.
Ashes 2023
Just a week after the WTC Final, came the encounter everyone was buzzed to witness. England had undergone a complete revamp after their previous Ashes outing which was nothing short of humiliation for them. The Three Lions had entirely metamorphosed into a new creature after that 4-0 miserable defeat that a naive, new-to-the-role Patsy handed them in Ashes 2021-22. Now was the time for revenge that the English team under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes had been impatiently waiting for. Two matches into the series and Bazball-intoxicated England had already been taught a lesson by Cummins-led Australia. The right-arm fast bowler ended the five-match series with 18 wickets next to his name.
World Cup 2023:
It was time for the biggest event in the cricket world, the ODI World Cup. The first two fixtures came as chastising for the Aussies, where India and South Africa respectively threw Australia at the bottom of the table. Of course, they can’t go on to win everything now, can they? The Australian captain, however, continued his characteristic calm demeanour which screamed that the Kangaroos were planning to bounce back. Bounce back they did and in a way that stunned everyone. They became unstoppable after that ignominious defeat against South Africa and took the then unbeatable Indian team in the storm that was raged on by Pat Cummins himself, stopping only after making their team win the title sixth time.
His memorable dismissal of Virat Kohli in the final which silenced the Indian crowd, easily earned him the hate of many that day. But even with that hate, no one would dare underestimate the talent that this Australian pacer possesses. He is, as they say, a mould-breaker.
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