When the mighty Aussies succumbed to the Chennai heat
On most days, Pat Cummins failing to pitch a delivery on that customary Pat Cummins spot would call for an inquest. On Sunday, at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, Cummins somehow managed to send a ball so far wide, that it landed off the pitch. And by such a margin that it was signalled a no-ball, as opposed to a wide.
Apart from this being a rather rare occurrence at the highest level of cricket, the fact that Cummins was the bowler added to the shocked responses from not just those around the field but even Virat Kohli, the batter on strike.
In the Australian captain's defence, he was attempting a leg-cutter, and that too with a ball that had begun to soak in the significant amount of dew around the outfield. Not to forget the sweat on his own hands on what was an incredibly humid evening. It also came at a stage when Kohli and KL Rahul had resurrected the Indian innings and put the home team well on their way to safety.
But still. This was Pat Cummins, and he doesn't miss his mark. And certainly not by this much.
It would be a stretch to say that it was a delivery that summed up Australia's day or their performance in their opening game of the 2023 Men's World Cup. More accurately, it was a moment that summed up where they'd got to in this particular match.
Pat Cummins didn't bowl badly. He just didn't bowl enough like Pat Cummins. There were times in his early spell where he too looked as threatening as his other two fast-bowling colleagues. But it just wasn't consistent enough to keep up the same level of pressure and intensity that Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood had generated in the early stages, to reduce India to 2/3.
The same could be said about Australia overall. Australia didn't play badly. They just didn't play enough like Australia. Or at least the way they've been playing in this format of late. For sure, these were highly testing weather conditions. It was hot, the kind of balmy Chennai day where, at one point, Steve Smith was on the ground getting his drenched socks changed while a member of the support staff held an umbrella over his head by the pitch. It was humid, the kind of humidity that doesn't just dehydrate you, it saps you of every ounce of energy in the body, repeatedly. The kind of heat where you feel like the blazing sun has developed a booster.
Keeping that in mind, the ideas seemed alright. The decision to bat first was justifiable. Australia had played an ODI at this very venue six months prior and defended a reasonable total. The start to the innings, despite the early loss of Mitchell Marsh, was as per plan too.
By the end of the first over, it was apparent that this wouldn't be a pitch to go hammer and tongs as a batter. This was a surface that needed nuance and craft from a batting perspective, and that's what you got from both David Warner and Smith. Their 69-run partnership if anything came at a relatively brisk pace too. Much like they were with the ball later in the day, Australia were the dominant team at the end of the first 15 overs of their innings...
...Only to falter quite dramatically thereafter. The pitch certainly slowed up as the middle overs came around and there was enough grip off it for the spin triumvirate of India to squeeze the run-rate dry.
Smith would eventually compare batting against Ravindra Jadeja, the chief-wrecker, on Sunday, to his many encounters against his nemesis in Test matches on Indian soil. And he perished to the left-arm spinner in a fashion he has before in white clothing - a trademark Jadeja delivery that angled in, pitched on middle and zipped past Smith's outside-edge to knock out his off-stump.
The Australian vice-captain had also seen his scoring rate drop quite significantly in the lead-up to his dismissal, much like Marnus Labuschagne would before his untoward shot that saw him get a snick to Rahul behind the wickets. Then came the collapse with Australia failing to capitalise on their strong beginning and thereby failing to get to that total close to 240, which could well have won them the game.
When it seams, it spins is the old adage from the late great Shane Warne. We saw the opposite of that here in Chennai as Hazlewood got the ball talking to knock out Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer before nearly having Kohli out a few times outside his off-stump. There was of course the dropped catch too from Marsh off Kohli that would have a say on the outcome. But still, once the fast bowlers had given Australia the best chance of defending the lowly total with the early strikes, the onus was on the spinners, Adam Zampa in particular, to follow it up.
It wasn't to be. Though Glenn Maxwell was not the easiest to pick off on this slow surface, Zampa never looked at ease, both in terms of gripping the ball and also getting any level of accuracy with line or length. Dew notwithstanding, he went at over run-a-ball from the very start of his spell and barely looked a threat against Kohli and Rahul. This was more than just a case of Adam Zampa not bowling enough like Adam Zampa. This was one of his more disappointing performances, as few and as far as they generally are in this format in recent times. And without him at his best, Australia never stood a chance of really threatening India with their sub-200 score.
The advantage of a World Cup format like this, for teams who make a stuttering start to their campaign, is that they still have a long time to get things right, and real opportunities to make the most of the lessons learnt in early defeat. And more so for Cummins & Co, with their tournament headed to Lucknow next, with two back-to-back matches in conditions very similar to what they encountered and succumbed to in Chennai.
Source of Info: https://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-news/128014/when-the-mighty-aussies-succumbed-to-the-chennai-heat
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