London: After Australia won their first-ever World Test Championship (WTC) Final after beating India by 209 runs at The Oval, skipper Pat Cummins credited Travis Head and Steve Smith for setting up the comprehensive victory, saying the duo left the team on top of the match.
On Day One of the clash, Travis Head (163) and Steve Smith (121) took full advantage of a lacklustre Indian bowling line-up to stitch a 285-run partnership and take Australia’s first innings total to 469. It meant India played catchup throughout the match despite a late fightback from Ajinkya Rahane, and Shardul Thakur with the bat and eventually lost by 209 runs.
“We made the most of the toss. We were certainly going to have a bowl. The way Travis and Smith played it gave us all a little bit of comfort after a pretty nervy morning. Travis has been brilliant throughout this whole campaign. He is always putting pressure back on the bowlers. We left Day One on top of the game, mainly down to those two guys,” said Cummins in the post-match presentation ceremony.
Winning their first WTC title meant Australia got their ninth ICC title and have become the first team in men’s international cricket to win all major trophies. Cummins admitted that Australia let India come a little closer though he felt his team were in control of the game.
“At times we weren’t at our slickest. But when it counted we played really well. I thought a couple of days ago we could have really driven the game home but we let India a little bit closer. For the most part, we were in control.”
Ahead of the Ashes starting from June 16, Cummins praised pacer Scott Boland, who paved the way for Australia’s win by taking out Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja in three balls to end up with 3/46.
“Scotty Boland is now my favourite player. He just continues to be my favourite. Everyone just did their role. Coming off a bit of a break for most of us. We’ll savour this for a few days before we turn our attention to the Ashes.”
On his performance, Boland said it was nice for him to get Kohli got on day five and that the plan was to exploit the bounce in the pitch. “It was good fun. Nice for our bowling group to come over here and put up a good performance and take 20 wickets. You needed to hit similar areas all the time.”
“There was a little bit of bounce and we tried to exploit that. It felt pretty good to get Kohli out. Some amazing catching from our cordon, it’s nice to have the confidence that if you get the nicks they’re going to get taken.”
(IANS)
