Australia ODI skipper Pat Cummins gave his take on the Ahmedabad pitch for the World Cup finals months after he lifted the World Cup trophy with a sensational win over hosts India at Narendra Modi Stadium. Cummins led Australia to their sixth World title in the 50-over format as he and his teammates silenced about a lakh fans present at the stadium.
The Aussie skipper won the toss in the final and was elected to bowl first, while Indian captain Rohit Sharma was also happy to bat first. When the result didn’t go in their favour, the Indian management was slammed for not reading the pitch right.
Cummins gave his verdict on the Ahmedabad pitch and said they analysed that it was nice to bat on at night when the dew got settled.
“The Ahmedabad pitch looked pretty dry. But the big thing there was the dew that was going to come in. We thought it might be a little bit dry, so it must spin a little bit during the day but, once the dew sets in at night, it’d be pretty nice to bat on. So I took a bit of a risk,” Cummins told Sportskeeda.
When asked how he and his teammates celebrated the World Cup triumph, Cummins asserted that the team got together after two weeks for the Test team, where they celebrated the triumph as there was a pleasant atmosphere in the dressing room.
“I think it’s still sinking in. Because we are all living in different states, we all flew off a little bit differently. So first of all, it was just getting around with the family, friends. My brother actually got married the day I got back, so that was like a double celebration. We got back together with the Test team about two weeks later and we were all still just smiling, on a high. So it felt like we celebrated the World Cup win the whole summer,” Cummins added.
Recently, former India cricketer Mohammad Kaif accused head coach Rahul Dravid and captain Rohit Sharma of doctoring the pitch. Kaif claimed that the star duo would visit the pitch on all three days leading up to the World Cup final, and that he saw the “colour” of the pitch continuing to change.
“I was there for three days, did a lot of shows. Rohit Sharma came in the evening with Dravid, went to the pitch, stood there for an hour and went back. They came again on the second day, and did the same thing. This went on for three days, and I saw the colour of that pitch change. I wore a blue shirt today, it would look yellow three days later… that was the extent of that change,” Kaif revealed on Guest in the Newsroom on TheLallanTop.