Cummins elated after Australia wins test series in Pakistan
Cummins elated after Australia wins test series in Pakistan.
LAHORE, TGO: Australia captain Pat Cummins was jubilant after his team thrived in testing cricket conditions to win the test series against Pakistan 1-0, and he compared it to routing England 4-0 in January.
“Just immense satisfaction for me, everyone is totally elated,” Cummins said after Australia’s 115-run victory Friday in the third test. “Winning the Ashes series at home was huge, but winning overseas doesn’t happen very often.”
The man of the match followed up his 5-56 in the first innings with 3-23 in the second for match figures of 8-79. The pacer’s victims included Naseem Shah, who was the last batter out for Pakistan. Chasing 351, the hosts crashed to 235 all out after tea on the last day.
It was Australia’s first test series in Pakistan since 1998.
“It’s been a real toil for the last 25-30 days, we knew it’s going to be totally different against the normal life in Australia,” Cummins said. He called the series win “hugely satisfying.”
After the tests at Rawalpindi and Karachi were drawn, Australia dismissed Pakistan in the final session of the series to win the inaugural Benaud-Qadir Trophy.
Opener Usman Khawaja won player-of-the-series award in the country of his birth after plundering 496 runs in the three tests, and Steve Smith scored half centuries in all three test matches to become the fastest batter in test history to complete 8,000 runs, in 151 innings.
“The amount of confidence we’ll get out of winning over here, not just as a team but so many individuals,” Cummins said. “Every individual had their moment and has shown that their game stands up to Asian conditions. So it’s huge for Sri Lanka later in the year, India next year. That’s awesome.”
Australia is scheduled to tour Sri Lanka, starting in June, before facing its biggest challenge in Asia when it tours India next year.
“It’s probably potentially not as (challenging) spinning conditions here as we might get in Sri Lanka,” Cummins said. “But I think in the past Asian tours that I’ve been on, there’s a lot of talk when we leave Australia that we’ve got to change everything about our game to succeed over here.
“This is a good lesson that the basics of batting or bowling that make you a good player in Australia can hold up over here.”
