Cummins Promises A 'Colorful' Future!

Second semi-final, Gayle & Samuels trying to set up a big total. The score reads 53 for 1 after 7. Bailey hands over the ball to Cummins to bowl the 8^th over. First ball - full and boom! In the arc for Samuels to smack it to the advertisement boards behind the extra cover fielder for a four. With a couple of sixes preceding this over, Samuels is in the mood to butcher anything in his arc. Second delivery - takes almost a decade to reach the other end, Samuels goes for the big slog, misses and timber! A moment of sudden stoppage for a vehicle traveling on an expressway! The remaining 4 deliveries are alternate full, quick and genuine slow deliveries short of length; just six runs off that over. Zoom out; in the context of the 205 for 4 total that WI amassed, that over didn't count much.

16^th over of the game against India, Cummins has Dhoni & Raina to contain. Australia hasn't let India gain any momentum until then. Short of length to Raina for a single first up, quick length dot delivery next; follows the risky slow bouncer which is cut in the deep for just two. Two deliveries quick and good areas imply two dot balls. Just 3 runs of 5 deliveries in the 16^th! The last delivery could have been a replica of previous ones, instead a wide, sucker ball to draw Dhoni to play the false shot and he holds out to Bailey at extra cover. The momentum remains with Australia and the over delivers a bonus in Dhoni’s wicket. At the end of the day, that over doesn't stand out as Australia eased to a 9-wicket win.

There are two ways to judge young, budding players - one is to scan and analyze match score sheets or observe how that person responds to questions that situations ask! The above two illustrations of isolation speak a few things about Patrick Cummins’ qualities as a pace bowler. He is genuinely quick, period, but a couple of moments in this tournament reflect why his peers and colleagues rate him so high. The Samuels dismissal and the death over against India suggest that he can devise a real-time plan and execute it efficiently. Australian bowling attacks in the past were impeccable for they didn't allow you to get away once they had the batsmen under control; Cummins appears in shades of that culture.

Genuine pace bowlers have a few common attribute - aggressive, always at you, love to ruffle a batsman’s feathers, believe that a boundary ball should be followed by a quicker delivery! We have seen Cummins’ burst in test & ODI cricket, but for many this was the first instance of watching this hyped-talent in T20 cricket. He can be relentless and paceman-like in the longer formats, but for the shortest format he appears to be of the Brett Lee mould - using variations of length and pace, rather than of the Shane Tait one - eternal pace, you-miss-I-hit.

Call it pre-match planning or resistant leadership, but Cummins for the major part of the competition wasn't allowed to bowl two consecutive overs! 6 wickets in 6 innings at 8.20 RPO aren't numbers or performances that make it to highlights packages or dream teams of the tournament, but in the overall setup of the Australian attack, Cummins had an effective role. His stats are a reflection of the period in the innings he came in to bowl - first or second change bowler most often, bowling an over within the power-play and one just after it; his last two were kept for the death. 

We don’t know what the team management has plans for Cummins and despite his okay-ish show in Sri Lanka, there would be many who would not want to see him burdened with limited-overs assignment. He has the test-cricket outlook to him, and the smartness for one-over spells. Couple an injury-prone body to that and it would be better proposition for him to stick to one, or at most two formats for effective usage of his skills & ability in the long term; plausibly test & T20 cricket. Cummins hasn't emerged as the find or the star of the tournament, but his 24 overs promise a bright prospect!