Pat Cummins’ Australia looked clueless against South Africa suffering a massive 134-run defeat, their worst in ODI World Cup history. For the second time in a row, their batting was way off the mark as they got all out below the score of 200. Cummins was asked about what he would say to his teammates in the changing room after a demoralising defeat to the Proteas. Cummins felt that this not enough needs to be said as his teammates were already hurting after the loss.
“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,” Cummins said in the post-match presentation.
Cummins was also asked whether he would have opted to bat first at Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow in hindsight to which he replied, “Really hard to say, if we want to be challenging in this tournament we need to find ways of performing regardless of batting first or second.”
Quinton de Kock scored 109 runs and helped South Africa post 311 on the board. While Cummins felt that the target of 312 was chaseable, he also said that the ball did a bit under the lights for fast bowlers.
“I thought Quinton (de Kock) batted really well, couldn’t get a breakthrough. From where they were, we were quite happy with 310, thought it was chaseable. Looked like hard work out there tonight, their bowlers bowled really well, think it nipped around a bit more under lights,” the fast bowling all-rounder said.
Cummins was expensive with the ball conceding 71 runs from nine overs he bowled. The only wicket he took was of Aiden Markram in the 44th over. In his last over, couple of catches were dropped. Overall, Australian fielders have been below par in the tournament as they have the worst catching efficiency in the tournament so far.
Australia will now face Sri Lanka in their next encounter against Sri Lanka at the same venue on October 16. They are currently ninth on the points table with a net run rate (NRR) of -1.846.
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