Pat Cummins will preserve every piece of 2023 and look back at this year when he is old, retired and extremely proud of a glorious cricket career for Australia. This was the year when Cummins sealed his place in cricketing folklore forever.
How can you be Pat Cummins and not cherish every moment of 2023? He was under pressure after Australia lost the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to India. Cummins was critcised for his listless captaincy and some even felt his leadership did not suit the Aussie style of ruthless cricket supported by sledging, mental disintegration and the general wolf-like demeanor of so many of these teams from Down Under.
And then, Pat Cummins pulled out of the 2023 Indian Premier League after two really ordinary years for Kolkata Knight Riders.
That was Pat Cummins’s 2023 for the better part of the first half of the year.
And then things began to change.
Pat Cummins oversaw an emphatic victory over India in the final of the World Test Championship and helped his side defend the Ashes in an ill-tempered series in England. Cummins plays with a smile and he does not pretend. Generally, he is a pleasant character and he does not mind his players showing their softer sides. So when Steve Smith acknowledged the guile of the Indian spinners earlier this year, the captain had no problems.
Australia came into the 2023 Cricket World Cup as one of the hot favourites but back-to-back defeats against India and South Africa saw them slide down to the bottom of the points table. Cummins himself was unimpressive as a bowler and uninspiring as a captain. A few weeks later, Cummins alongside Mitchell Starc, turned things around with the ball and Australia had lifted their sixth ODI World Cup after defeating a red-hot Indian team.
That wasn’t the end of that.
Exactly a month after the World Cup triumph, Pat Cummins fetched a whopping Rs 20.50 crore after Sunrisers Hyderabad won a fierce bidding war against Royal Challengers Bangalore. For a brief while, Cummins was The most expensive player in any IPL auction till Mitchell Starc trumped him.
Pat Cummins, experts felt, was rewarded for an outstanding year as a leader and his presence in the SRH set-up would undoubtedly give them an excellent captaincy option.
Not satisfied with his exploits throughout the year, Pat Cummins signed off with a 10-wicket haul against Pakistan at the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne as Australia clinched the three-match series with one Test still to be played in the New Year. Cummins is now only the second Australia captain after Allan Border to pick 10 wickets in a Test.
