Next, another feather of success has arrived at the helmet of Pat Cummins after leading Australia to victory in the world test championship and world ODI cup last year.
In this season’s IPL final slated for Sunday 2024, he will be captaining Sunrisers Hyderabad against former champions Kolkata Knight Riders aiming to win the team a second title. Pat Cummins is keeping himself focused on what lies ahead in order to keep his mind on achieving more glory without being carried away by it.
“It would be great if we do, but that run is going to stop at some point,” he told reporters ahead of the IPL final.
It was a great couple of years but I never captained any T20 cricket team before this series so I’m not too sure how it goes. It’s pretty fast paced out there.
According to Pat Cummins, analyzing his side’s performance in terms of young players and experienced players mix was the key thing that made them succeed since they won most matches than any other team played as well as lost some in this season’s competition as well.
“We have very experienced bowlers (Jaydev) Unadkat and Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar). We also had many youngsters who came through and won us games by themselves like Nitish (Reddy) and Abhishek (Sharma).
“We’ve also got guys who haven’t played a lot of domestic cricket or been away from Indian set up but have been outstanding. That’s kind of been our story,” he said.
The Orange Army who were beaten by KKR in Qualifier 1 finished second on the points table.
After SRH defeated Rajasthan Royals in Qualifier 2, assistant coach Simon Helmot admitted that Pat Cummins used stats before every game.
While asked about it, the Australian accepted that despite having all those numbers sometimes one should stick with his gut feeling on particular day.’
“There are tools… I mean all the data analytics are tools. It’s just another factor in the decision-making process,” he reckoned. “We play a lot of T20 games, but the two games are not exactly the same. It’s different wickets and opposition, and data could take you only so far.
“So, I think you still need to back your gut feeling and intuition. Data doesn’t tell you that it’s probably going to be successful.
“We have quite a bit of experience around our squad like Daniel Vetori. So, it’s about weighing up that objective data with what you feel out there.”
JUST WANT TO GIVE THEM THE FREEDOM TO PLAY
Pat Cummins is one captain who likes letting his players play freely. He adds that they had to block out the external noise.
“Because at the end of the day there is a lot of pressure on them from obviously number of fans watching, media journalists but also their own teams back home or their own coaches and everything as well, so you try and strip that all away from them.
“A lot of times when they first start playing these younger guys do have that freedom within them so whenever they get stuck in anything keep trying to encourage that sort of thing and certainly just want to give them every chance possible.”
“And then if it doesn’t work out – we’re kind of there for help them work through it rather than scolding them or telling them what needs to change in some way,” he concluded.
