Australia’s captain admits to “strange” feelings but hopes to win the series at The Oval.
Cummins was a member of the team that won the series 2-2 in 2019 after also retaining the urn at Old Trafford,
In contrast to four years ago, Australia will not be celebrating reclaiming the Ashes, with Pat Cummins conscious that rain in Manchester allowed them to escape with a draw after being dominated by England.
Cummins was a member of the team that won the series 2-2 in 2019 after also retaining the urn at Old Trafford, although with a comfortable victory, and those who played that year have often commented about it leaving unfinished business.
At the end of this game, England knew their opportunity to recover the Ashes was gone, while the visitors knew they’d turned up one of their poorest performances under the Cummins-Andrew McDonald era. Cummins did, however, mention their previous triumph in the series, which placed them up 2-0.
“It’s a bit of a strange one,” Cummins said. “As a group, we’re proud that we’ve retained the Ashes, but it comes on the heels of not our best week.” It feels fantastic to keep the Ashes, but we know we have a lot of work ahead of us for next week.
“I don’t think there will be a big party.” Perhaps a pat on the back for maintaining the ashes A lot of effort has gone into getting us to the point where a draw ensures we keep the Ashes. But, with a Test match starting in three days, we’ll be completely focused on that.
“It’s a pretty similar group to when we retained it in 2019, and we all left feeling okay, but we felt like we’d just missed what we’d come over to achieve.” In some ways, what happened today won’t affect how we look at next week. We want to win it to ensure that we win it completely.”
With the exception of Marnus Labuschagne, who played a great Test with scores of 51 and 111, no aspect of Australia’s performance performed at or near its peak. But one of the key points of contention was Cummins’ captaincy during England’s explosive innings of 592, which came at more than five runs per over.
Cummins said he did not feel overwhelmed as captain, instead focusing on his own bowling, which fell far short of his usual excellent standards.
“As a bowler, it’s frustrating that I didn’t bowl very well at all, not up to the standards I try to keep myself to,” he remarked. “I crossed more lines than I usually do.” Only one or two poor balls every over. I honestly don’t know why.. My rhythm felt fairly nice, and I felt pretty clear in my own mind about my plans.
“In terms of captaincy, I think there have been a few moments where the [England] batters have performed well, but the game moves very quickly.”
“We knew coming into this series that they were going to have a couple of days where everything went their way, and the game moves fast, so it was one of those days.” It’s difficult and irritating, but that’s cricket. We’ve been on the opposite side a few times.”
The game most drastically slipped away from Australia in the middle session of the second day, when Zak Crawley, Moeen Ali, and Joe Root put up 178 in 25 overs, leaving the visitors unable to respond. The innings concluded similarly, with Jonny Bairstow and Jimmy Anderson adding 66 for the last wicket.
“That two-hour block in the middle of the session wasn’t our best,” Cummins admitted. “We tried a few different plans at them, and maybe they’ll work another day; maybe a couple of the edges carry through or some of the catches go to hand, but I thought they batted well.” I was quite pleased with how the day turned out. We were able to reclaim some of that power.
“That two-hour block in the middle of the session wasn’t our best,” Cummins admitted. “We tried a few different plans at them, and maybe they’ll work another day; maybe a couple of the edges carry through or some of the catches go to hand, but I thought they batted well.” I was quite pleased with how the day turned out. We were able to reclaim some of that power.
“We probably left a few runs out there in the first two innings,” he said. “That was a great wicket to bat on on day one.” But we’ve been extremely excellent at it in the past, so it’s not something I’m too concerned about, but it’s a good time to look back at all of our games and think about what we could do differently and put that into action for next week.”
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