Pat Cummins went head-to-head with the teenage batting phenom Vaibav Suryavanshi and lived to tell the tale as he led Sunrisers Hyderabad to victory in his comeback from the back injury that severely curtailed his Ashes summer.
In an Indian Premier League tournament that has thus far been a graveyard for bowlers, Cummins watched his first ball to 15-year-old Suryavanshi disappear for six over mid-wicket – 11 from his first over suggested a long night ahead.
But Cummins (1-27) locked in thereafter and conceded just seven runs from his final two overs while also yorking the Rajasthan Royals captain Riyan Parag with the kind of delivery that will hearten Australia’s selectors after their skipper’s long layoff.
Cummins was certainly impressed by Suryavanshi, who hammered a century from just 36 balls after vaulting to his 50 from a mere 15 deliveries.
“I think he’s my new favourite player,” Cummins said afterwards. “He hits the ball so hard, it’s great to watch, it’s good fun. You’ve got to be right on the money as a bowler because if you’re not, it’s going a long way. He’s impressive, he’s had a great start to his career and I like the way he plays, he takes the game on.”
Those close to Cummins believe that the 10 months he spent recovering from back trouble – broken only by a six-wicket haul in the Adelaide Ashes Test – will help to extend his international career ahead of a gruelling calendar in which Australia play as many as 21 Tests in 12 months from August.
“Really happy. Never quite sure how it’ll come out first game,” he said. “I pick it up better than 10 years ago.
“The IPL’s fun, you’ve always got to change the fields, use the bowlers, the batters are always making you think. So I enjoyed it, felt pretty natural.”
As for his bowling return in a tournament where scores of comfortably more than 200-plus have become the norm, Cummins quipped that bowlers had to work on their batting. The two Saturday night games saw a combined total of 984 runs scored, underlining how a combination of flat pitches and bold batting were turning this IPL into cricket’s equivalent of the Home Run Derby.
“I guess you just work on your batting,” Cummins joked. “It’s a good challenge, you can have a bad couple of overs but if you come back and bowl a really good death over that can be match-winning. I actually think in some ways it takes the pressure off us bowlers, knowing that our batting lineup can chase whatever.
“The wickets might be flat but it’s only 20 overs, it’s not a Test match where they’re going to bat for five days so I’m OK with that, maximum four overs. It is what it is. We set up our team to try to go big on our batting, and as bowlers it is up to us to try to minimise the runs. The scores look a bit different to a few years ago, but the concept is still the same.
“You feel like all four overs are super important, and one wicket, one really good over can actually be as important as a good spell would be in a lower scoring game.”
Chasing 229 to win, Cummins’ Test vice-captain Travis Head departed early, well beaten in a duel with England spearhead Jofra Archer and caught behind, before Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan led the SRH chase to a win that moves them up to third on the IPL table.
Punjab Kings, coached by Ricky Ponting, had earlier maintained their primacy at the top of the league by also chasing down a huge score against Delhi Capitals.
KL Rahul crushed 152 from 67 balls for Delhi, and inflicted particularly severe punishment on Cricket Australia-contracted swing bowler Xavier Bartlett, who was carted for 69 runs from four overs.
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Daniel Brettig is The Age’s chief cricket writer and the author of several books on cricket.Connect via X.From our partners
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