Pat Cummins, the captain of Australia’s cricket team, still expressed his belief in the team even after they suffered a loss in the third Test of the series against South Africa, which played in Cape Town. Although the recent performance of the team in Test cricket has not been encouraging. Australia has lost three matches out of the seven played previously and positioned itself third in the World Test Championship (WTC). Another achievement of the team was losing its leading position in the ICC Test Rankings after almost three years.
In the last Test match played at Newlands, Australia did not manage to complete the required target of 288 runs on the last day of the game and ended up getting out at a lower score of only 111 runs in their innings. Nathan Lyon was the only player to be left not out with the highest score of 33 during the innings. Moreover, the Australian batsmen could not withstand the pressure put on them by the bowling attack of South Africa. However, Nathan Cummins did not lose his hope and expressed his faith in his squad even after the defeat.
“I think we’re a really good side. Tough opponents away from home. It’s always really difficult. We came here very hopeful and thought we were good enough to win, but we weren’t. We’ll have a couple of weeks to digest it. A couple of big series coming up, but we’re going back home, a place we obviously know well. But yeah, overall, relatively happy with how we’re going,” Cummins said post match presentation.
Pat Cummins Backs Australia Despite Test Series Defeat
Australia found itself well-positioned for winning the series, having secured victory in the first Test match in Durban. However, South Africa clawed back into the contest by winning the second Test match convincingly by an innings and 31 runs in Gqeberha. They then wrapped up the series by winning the third Test match in Cape Town. Australia lacked the ability to capitalize on the crucial moments that came their way in both matches.
That is just what happened during the second Test when they got South Africa down to 110/6, only to see them recover from there. In the third Test, Australia had a healthy lead of 100 runs after the first innings, but they lost their grip very quickly thereafter. Ryan Rickelton and Wiaan Mulder made centuries while Australia faltered in its batting and lost the match and the series as a result. Pat Cummins stated after the match that his team had lost out on key opportunities. He stated that Australia had probably lost the match in the first hour of Day 5 after losing too many wickets.
“I think the trend of this game was once you got yourself in, you know there were runs to be scored there, and you could face lots of balls. Probably within the first hour, really, the game was away from us, so just didn’t really give ourselves a chance,” Cummins said.