World Test Championship Final: Australia Test captain Pat Cummins has confirmed premier batter Steve Smith will bat at number four in the upcoming World Test Championship final against South Africa, set to happen at Lord’s from June 11-15.
Smith, who has 23 centuries and 26 fifties while batting at number four in Tests, had slammed a first-innings century which set the stage for Australia to clinch the 2023 World Test Championship Final win over India at The Oval in London.
There were initial murmurs of Smith being asked to open the batting alongside Usman Khawaja, but Cummins has now shut it down. “I can confirm that Smudge will be batting at four. Everyone else, I’m not willing to, but I can confirm Steve Smith will be number four,” said Cummins to The Grade Cricketer on Prime Video Australia.
Australia are on the verge of being the first team to win back-to-back WTC titles and Cummins spoke about the challenges of competing in the two-year championship cycle. “After winning (in) 2023, there's a lot of talk of trying to retain it. Go and defend it. It's not tangible until you actually make the final. Now that we've made it, it'll be pretty cool to win another ICC trophy.”
“Playing at Lord's, it's a tournament that every other Test playing nation is vying for so, it just signifies a pretty good couple of years. I think it shows performance over two years. But there are varying conditions. Even in ICC World Cups, it's normally very similar conditions. A Test tournament, you've got to go and win basically everything at home, but for us, we had to go to Sri Lanka and win in really tough spinning conditions.”
“Go over to New Zealand, and beat a really strong side at home. So, I think it shows that you've really got to be a complete team over a couple year stretch to make the final. We just missed out that first year (2019-2021), but I think we are a better side now than we were back then. We lost a couple of games at home. But, yeah, I think two (WTC titles) would be incredible. One, I think, is still a pretty good demonstration of how good we've been over the past few years,” he elaborated.
Cummins signed off by saying South Africa, captained by Temba Bavuma, have enough match-winners who can pose a serious challenge to them in the WTC final. “They always seem to compete in every tournament. They've got a lot of experience, especially the white-ball teams - they play across different franchise leagues.”
“Rabada, Maharaj, Bavuma, they've played a lot of cricket over the years. They have really good fast bowlers, they always seem to have not just one or two main guys but they have got four-six guys they can call.”
Cummins signed off by saying South Africa, captained by Temba Bavuma, have enough match-winners who can pose a serious challenge to them in the WTC final. “They always seem to compete in every tournament. They've got a lot of experience, especially the white-ball teams - they play across different franchise leagues.”
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Article Source: IANS