Australian captain Pat Cummins was delighted after the hosts secured a convincing 184-run win against India in the fourth Test match of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar trophy at the iconic MCG on Monday. India was given a stiff target of 340 runs on the final day but they were bundled out for 155 runs.
The visitors were in a shoo-in position to draw the Test match as they had seven wickets in the bank at tea. However, Rishabh Pant played an aggressive shot, only to hole out to Mitchell Marsh at long-on and it opened the door for the hosts.
The tourists lost their last seven wickets for only 34 runs and now trail by 2-1 in the series, with one game still to go.
Meanwhile, Pat Cummins was the star of the show for Australia with both bat and ball. He scored an attacking knock of 49 runs in the first innings and scored a more important innings of 41 runs in the second essay. Furthermore, he bagged a total of six wickets in the Test match and thus was awarded Player of the Match.
Cummins gave credit to Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne for adding crucial runs and feels posting 474 runs in the first innings helped them set the game.
Pat Cummins said in the post-match presentation, “What an amazing Test match, one of the best to be part of, the crowd has been ridiculous and cricket has been just as good, pretty happy change room at the moment, pretty happy to contribute. Marnus helped me out in the second innings big time, never really know what you going to get with our batting, fortunately, it came off in this game. Happy to contribute, amazing innings from Smith to hold the first innings together. Getting more than 400 in the first innings set the game for us.”
Cummins highlighted that they believed getting one wicket after tea would help them turn the tables and that’s what exactly happened.
Cummins concluded, “You always think anything can happen. We bowled well in the first session to have them 3/30. They batted well in the middle session. We knew that we had to get one breakthrough and anything can happen and that proved to be the case. We had plenty of runs to play with, we had plenty of fielders with the helmet around. We talk about a lot about us as a lower order, we put a lot of work into it. We know it can be the difference in a lot of Test matches and we work on ourselves a lot, to try and contribute a few more runs.”
The fifth and final Test match between Australia and India will be played at the Sydney Cricket Ground from January 3 onwards.
