Cummins: 'I think that's the pinnacle'
Written by I Dig Sports"That's huge, I think that's the pinnacle of international cricket, winning a one-day World Cup," Cummins reflected, an hour or so after Glenn Maxwell hit the winning runs to seal an emphatic six-wicket triumph in Ahmedabad.
"Especially over here in India, in front of a crowd like this. Yeah, that's huge. Yeah, it's been a big year for everyone, but our cricket team has been here in India, Ashes, World Test Championship and top it off with this is just huge. These are the moments that you'll remember for the rest of your life.
"It's just every international team comes together. You only get a shot at it every four years. Even if you have a ten-year career, you might only get two chances at it. And yeah, it's just the whole cricket world stops with this World Cup. So, it doesn't get any better."
Cummins was, by his own admission, nervous as he waited for the game to start this morning, clocking the sea of blue on their way to the ground as his team made their own way there. But he was nerveless when the game began, first in deciding to bowl first against the tournament's most fearsome batting line-up, and then, with the ball himself.
"Yeah, we did take a second in the huddle just to acknowledge the silence that was going around the crowd," he said. "It just felt like it was one of those days where it was all made for him to score another hundred like he normally does so yeah that was satisfying."
"We wanted to be pretty brave this World Cup, we didn't want to kind of limp into the semi-finals, we wanted to be the team that could score 400 and you saw that the way we kind of shaped up with Trav, [David] Warner and then having [Mitchell] Marshy at number three," Cummins said.
"We wanted to be really aggressive and then a couple of our all-rounders are obviously aggressive to finish up the innings so we would rather fail that way. But then Marnus just showed his class and in South Africa you had to pick him, he was fantastic and he was playing a different style to probably what he did for the first start of his ODI career. It was paying off and we know he's a gun so you had to try and find room for him.
"And then the Trav Head one was, we thought his World Cup was over. It wasn't until about the next night afterwards [the injury] where Ronnie [coach Andrew McDonald] came up to me. He's like, 'I haven't slept all night, I think we're going to keep him. We're going to take the risk. He might be right for the Netherlands and then if we're going to make the finals and we want to win the World Cup I think he needs to be there for the finals.'"
Cummins had only played two ODIs since November 2022 (and eight since November 2020) when the World Cup began. But he said he had rediscovered the joys of the format during the World Cup, calling for more games that matter. The future of ODIs is likely to be discussed at the ICC Board meetings this week in Ahmedabad though no concrete decision is expected.
"Maybe because we won, but I did fall in love with ODI [cricket] again this World Cup," he said. "I think the scenario where every game really matters, it does mean a bit different to just a bilateral. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, the World Cup's got such a rich history, I'm sure it's going to be around for a long time. There's so many wonderful games, so many wonderful stories within this last couple of months. So, I think there's definitely a place."
Osman Samiuddin is a senior editor at ESPNcricinfo