‘Definitely number one’ - Pat Cummins dubs Edgbaston Test as his greatest win in red-ball cricket
Australia defeated England by two wickets in the opening Test of the five-match series.
With two quick wickets of Usman Khawaja and Alex Carey, Australia were under tremendous pressure at Edgbaston on Day 5 of the first Test, as they still had to chase 55 runs but with only two wickets remaining, it looked like a difficult task. However, skipper Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon held their nerves and pulled off a majestic win in the final overs as the home team was left in absolute disbelief. Talking about the same, Cummins dubbed the Edgbaston Test to be the best match he has ever been a part of, in red-ball cricket.
The 30-year-old also added that the visiting team was confident of getting the job done as they believed that the game didn’t swing away from their hands after Usman Khawaja’s terrific century in the first innings. Cummins stated that he was confident about the run chase in the fourth innings as Australia required only two runs per over in the last 20 overs.
“This is No.1, yeah, absolutely. Start of an Ashes series, definitely number one. Probably when we got down to 10 runs or so required or maybe 16 runs or something, I thought like 2 runs an over and felt pretty confident about winning. It felt like from almost the first session of Day 1, it was 50-50 the whole way along. Like it never felt like it swung too far, one way or the other,” Cummins stated after the match.
Away Test matches are really hard to win: Cummins
Pat Cummins also acknowledged that the home crowd was very loud throughout the course of the match and that the Australian fans were outnumbered. Notably, the English fans were singing chants and songs, as one of their rhymes concerning Steve Smith eventually went viral on social media. Talking about everything, Cummins revealed that winning away from home is very difficult in Test cricket, but the team is happy to get over the line in Edgbaston.
“(On Australian supporters) They’ve been outnumbered. We Aussies aren’t great at chants and songs, but they stuck through it. We have been big on how we want to play. I think we have been consistent over the last 20 Test matches or so, and this time it was good enough to get a win. Away Test matches are really hard to win, so to come here and win, going about the way that we want to play, has been great,” Cummins added.
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