Australia Tour Of Pakistan 2022: If We Want To Be No. 1 In World, We Have To Show Well On These Subcontinent Tours: Pat Cummins

Australia Test captain Pat Cummins asserted that performing in the subcontinent will be a challenge for his team to justify their No.1 ICC Test rankings.

Australia is scheduled to play three Tests, as many ODIs and a solitary T20I match in Pakistan with the tour starting on March 4.

We don’t really know what to expect over there: Pat Cummins

Australia will come fresh in the Test series with a 4-0 Ashes triumphant against England at home. Cummins, who was the leading wicket-taker of the series with 21 wickets from four matches, accepted the fact that conditions in Pakistan will be different than at home.

The Australia Test captain wants his team to prove their talent by winning overseas Test series, especially in the subcontinent.

“It throws up a different challenge to the cricket we’ve grown up used to playing in Australia. There’s probably going to be times where I’ll have to be more creative, try a few different things, be brave, so I’m excited for that challenge,” Cummins said. 

“We don’t really know what to expect over there. Subcontinent Tests can be played quickly or slowly, but think for a lot of this group, we haven’t played a lot of cricket overseas, so if we want to be No. 1 in the world we have to have a really good showing on these subcontinent tours,” he added. 

Reverse swing is a huge factor going into the subcontinent: Pat Cummins

Cummins also said that they have sufficient bowling options both in pace and spin departments and they are comfortable playing on any given pitch. The Australian pacer is working on his ability to reverse swing the ball which can help him to deceive the opposition batters.

“It’s made us not to expect to have a just a really spin-friendly subcontinent conditions that perhaps we’ve experienced in past Indian or Sri Lanka tours. Seems like the pace bowlers have done quite well and they’ve got a really strong pace-bowling line-up. We feel like squad we have covers all areas and we are really comfortable if we need extra spinners or extra pace bowlers,” Cummins said. 

“A lot of time the ball reverse swings so we didn’t really experience it this summer with grassy wickets, short games, whereas over there it can be a real weapon so trying to upskill that. We haven’t bowled a lot of reverse swings in the last year or so but it’s a huge factor going into the subcontinent,” he added. 

The Australian team’s visit will end their 24 years of absence from playing in Pakistan as the last time the five-time World Cup winners toured the Asian nation was back in 1998.

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