Lucknow: Ahead of a must-win clash against Sri Lanka in the 2023 Men’s ODI World Cup, Australia captain Pat Cummins admitted that he had found it hard to read the pitches in various Indian venues and decide on what has to be the gameplan as per the different conditions.
Australia’s campaign is facing dark clouds after suffering a loss to India on a spin-friendly pitch in Chennai and against South Africa on a bouncy Lucknow pitch.
“It’s a tricky one, even ODI cricket compared to T20s played over half the game in daylight, half at night. So, it’s a bit different to T20 cricket.”
“Find these wickets hard to read as well. Like sometimes they look terrible and they play beautifully and the opposite. Sometimes they look flat and they end up spinning. So, it is tough. You just got to adapt on the fly sometimes,” said Cummins in the pre-match press conference.
He stated that despite the difficulty in reading pitches, they will continue to assess pitches on a match-by-match basis. “You still got to assess conditions. India is a big country. So, Chennai is a long way away from say, up north Delhi or somewhere like that.”
“So, there are big differences, but as I said, it’s not a perfect art, not a perfect science. Whatever you do, most games are kind of 50-50, whether you bat first or bowl first, the winner is historical. So,whatever you do, you got to do it well.”
Asked about the mood in the dressing room post the twin defeats, Cummins conceded it hasn’t been ideal and that people in the team are eager to make amends. “It’s not ideal at all. I think everyone’s, well, after the last game was a little bit flat, but the last couple of days have been really good. Everyone’s kind of rolled up their sleeves and want to try and get to work and make amends.”
“So, the mood in the camp has been fantastic. Everyone’s great. Everyone’s desperate to turn it around. I think looking back at 2019, India and South Africa were the two teams that we lost to in the round games there.”
“I think in the last year, they’re kind of the two teams that we’ve had the most trouble against. So, you know, the opportunity now is we’ve got some teams we haven’t played for a while that we’ve had a lot of success against and be really confident when we go out there.”
“We’re obviously 0-2, so we’ve got to start winning and start winning quick. Every game now becomes almost like a final. You’ve got to win just about all of them,” he concluded.
–IANS