From his boyhood to early teens, Pat Cummins saw Australia complete a hat-trick of World Cup wins and in his early youth got that taste of what it means to be a World Champion while being part of the class of 2015. Now at 30, Cummins wants to experience that awesome feeling of leading a great bunch of blokes to an unprecedented sixth World Cup title beating a formidable Indian team. (Scorecard | Streaming | Key Battles | Preview)
"It would be huge. We were all kids not too long ago, watching some of those great teams win the 99, 2003, 2007 World Cups. That's the opportunity ahead of us tomorrow, which is really exciting. To be captain would be an absolute privilege to lift the trophy with these great bunch of blokes," Cummins said on the eve of the mega-final. The Australian skipper believes that a tournament that's held only once in four years is certainly going to be a career highlight for him.
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"It would be awesome and in terms of the pinnacle, I think it is right up there. It's got the longest history of a world event where all the teams compete. You only get a shot at it every four years. "So even if you have a long career, you might only play in two of these events. 2015 is still a career highlight for me, so I think tomorrow if we win, we might pip it." Having won the World Test Championship followed by the Ashes, it has been an awesome year for Australian cricket and the 50-over World Cup will be the icing on the cake.
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"I mean, it's been a huge year. There are four marquee events. If you have one of those in an off-season, it's a big off-season. We've got four of them. For some of the guys, probably spent less than a couple of weeks in their own bed since the end of the Aussie summer. "One thing that's stayed consistent has been the morale in the group. The guys have been awesome. They're so up for every game they play. And to put ourselves in a position of this, it would just top off an incredible year and probably a career-defining year that a lot of us will look back on in years to come and be pretty proud of," the skipper looked content with his team's form.
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For Cummins, having at least 12 players, who have either won a 50-over or a T20 World Cup, holds the team in good stead as they know how to deal with pressures of a big occasion. "I think it's going to be an even match. The good thing is we have got six or seven guys that won it in 2015 so we know that feeling. Even more of the guys that were there in the T20 World Cup, different format, but pretty much everyone. "Well at least a dozen of the 15, have won a World Cup and know what it takes and know that feeling and won't be afraid to go out there and be brave and take the game on."
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As far as the pressure of playing in-front of 132,000 spectators is concerned, Cummins wants his men to embrace the occasion, just like David Warner doing Allu Arjun's 'Srivalli hook step' from blockbuster Telugu film 'Pushpa' "We play over here in India a lot so the noise is not something new - yeah, I think on this scale it's probably bigger than we would have experienced before but it's not something totally foreign to what we've had before.
"Everyone deals with it slightly differently. You see Davey [Warner] probably dancing and winning the crowd over other guys just staying in their own bubble – yeah it should be good." Having beaten India in an ODI series in March, Cummins is confident of his team's chances in the final but did term Mohammed Shami as India's stand-out performer.
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"I mean they're all pretty well-rounded in all departments. You know the one guy that didn't play at the start of the tournament, who's done really well is obviously Mohammed Shami. He is a class bowler to right and left-armer, so yeah, he's going to be a big one. Even Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja are going to be pretty tough to face in middle-overs.
"They've got five guys who bowl 10 overs pretty much every match. I think their spinners have done well through the middle overs, Kuldeep and Jadeja, so they're going to be a tough proposition like they always are. But you know, they've won every game, so they've been very impressive."
