Australia captain Pat Cummins and opening batter Travis Head received praise from legendary all-rounder Shane Watson for their exceptional performances in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 final against India at Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi Stadium.
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Australia captain Pat Cummins showcased an outstanding performance with figures of 2-30 in his 10 overs, while Travis Head made a crucial catch of India captain Rohit Sharma and scored a match-winning century as their side triumphed over India by six wickets in the one-sided final.
Pat Cummins has steered Australia to victory in the ICC T20 World Cup 2022, the World Test Championship, and the ICC Cricket World Cup this year under his leadership.
Shane Watson praised the duo’s performances and approach in a conversation with the International Cricket Council. He described Travis Head as a player who aggressively takes on the opposition.
“There’s no question that he’s a high-risk, high-reward batter,” he said. “Once he finds his groove, as we saw after probably about 50 or 60 runs, then he was just in overdrive. And then he was just really in, whenever he wanted to hit the ball to the boundary he did.
He noted that Travis Head has transformed himself into a “free and fearless” player.
“He’s been a revelation for Australia at the top of the order for sure. The way he’s been batting in one day cricket and we had to do it in India in a final, in challenging conditions, one the atmosphere for sure, but these conditions here today certainly were fairly different to what he’s used to batting in Australia, for example, and where he got brought up. To be able to do that in these conditions as well as shows something of a very, very high quality,” he said.
Shane Watson commended Pat Cummins’ tactics and decisions in the final.
“His ability to be able to galvanise his team and whatever they did to turn things around after that second game, the coach, the support staff and Pat Cummins in the leadership group of the Australian team, whatever they did, they really turned it around and turned it on,” he said.
Shane Watson added, “To be able to then just work through it, and you could see there definitely was a shift after the second game just from his own performance, you’d see there’s a little bit of extra intensity in him after that.”
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