Former England captain Nasser Hussain lavished praises on Australian skipper Pat Cummins, who led his side from the front, scored the winning runs, and took his team to a magnificent victory against the hosts in the first Test of the ongoing Ashes 2023. England gave a tough time after setting a 281-run target for the visitors to chase, but Australia clinched a memorable two-wicket win to go one up.
Pat Cummins played a brilliant knock under pressure on Day 5 of the first Ashes Test, on June 20, Tuesday, at Edgbaston. Cummins contributed well both with the bat and the ball throughout the five-day game. After scoring a valuable 38 in the first innings, he followed it up with four wickets in England’s second innings.
But Cummins unleashed his best side on the final day, as he carried Australia to a win from a point where they had been 227/8. Cummins scored an unbeaten 44, while Nathan Lyon assisted him brilliantly with an unbeaten 16. The duo put up a 55-run partnership for the ninth wicket which saw the World Test Champions winning. Hussain lauded Pat Cummins’ efforts while writing for his column in Daily Mail as he said:
“To be able to hang in there when England played the way they did, Joe Root scooping him and him having to set fields to counteract it, was a mark of him as both a cricketer and character. The criticism he faced for adopting defensive fields, the ability to soak all of that up, and then on the fifth evening come out with 72 runs needed and bat in such a clinical manner was exceptional.”
“His sense of timing was spot-on, and when England were down on their knees, he pounced with those couple of sixes off Joe Root. When men were placed out for the hook, and they targeted his ribs, he swayed out of the way. He was so cool and calm under immense pressure,” he added.
If Australia had lost, everyone would've been questioning his captaincy: Hussain
The 55-year-old asserted that Cummins made the right decision almost every time, understanding when to take things easy and when to push them. When discussing Cummins' leadership, he said that if the visitors had lost, the Australian captain would have been criticised for his strategy. Elaborating upon the same, Hussain further wrote:
“If Australia had lost, everyone would've been questioning his tactics, and his captaincy for being too defensive. He wins, and it's genius. That's pretty much international captaincy = if you win, you get back to all the decisions that you make, and if things go against you, then people pick them apart.”
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