Cummins Lauds Australia's Solid Start in New World Test Championship Campaign

Pat Cummins, the Australian captain, has voiced his satisfaction with his team's performance at the beginning of the new World Test Championship (WTC) cycle. After their decisive series victory against the West Indies in Grenada, Australia, a team that has reached the WTC Final in the past two instances, has successfully secured their first two Tests in this new cycle.

Cummins reflects on Australia's strong recovery after the WTC Final. © AFP

"It's not easy to come by an away win, so we're really pumped with how we bounced back after Lord's (WTC Final)," Cummins stated following the Grenada Test. "It's been a good couple of weeks. Going into next week with the pink ball, it's great to secure the series before that. These matches always present something different. It's a dream start, really, two wins from two, which gets us into the cycle, and we've played some really good cricket."

Cummins also commended the experienced players in the team, particularly highlighting Steve Smith, who scored a crucial half-century to save the team from a difficult situation in the second innings when they were at 28/3, with a lead of just 61 runs. "I think experience plays a big role. We talked about someone like Steve Smith coming back," Cummins noted. "He might not have played at Grenada, but he's played on many wickets where you have to find a different way to score. It might not be big drives down the ground or whatever it is; you've got to scrap your way to a 50, and I think that comes with experience."

He added, "With experience, you've seen many of the same problems before, and you have a level of calmness that allows you to work through the problem. As a captain, it makes my life a lot easier knowing you've got lots of settled players there."

The 32-year-old captain also expressed his support for young opener Sam Konstas, who has struggled to make a significant impact in the series, scoring only 33 runs in four innings. "Every innings feels like the biggest thing in the world," he said about Konstas. "But I think the stat is that even the best batters in the world don't hit their average three out of four times or something like that. You're going to fail more often than you're going to succeed."

Cummins advised, "As long as you're a quick learner, as long as you're moving well and giving yourself the best chance, just keep doubling down on that and judge yourself after a series or so, not innings by innings."

Another opener who has been under scrutiny in the series is West Indies' former captain Kraigg Brathwaite. Despite his recent decline in form, Brathwaite's 100th Test did not prove to be very successful. He has now recorded scores of 4, 4, 0, and 7, prompting head coach Daren Sammy to consider his future for the next game. "He hasn't looked good this series, and in a team where you are searching for performances, you get very close to saying, 'Okay, do we give somebody else a chance?'" Sammy stated. "But we will really have a good discussion with myself, the selection group, and the captain himself about that particular situation."

However, Sammy also acknowledged that the pitches in the Caribbean need improvement to produce better batters in Test cricket. "It's hard to produce the quality of batters that we want to compete," he noted. "When you look at the surfaces that we play on, it's hard."

"If you look at all the averages, we barely have guys averaging 40-plus in (first-class) cricket. Those types of pitches don't allow you to become technically sound because you're really unsure. There's always doubt. And in an ideal world, you want to see our guys perform because of, not in spite of. It's something myself, the director of cricket, the franchise system, we've looked at very, very closely in trying to change that, trying to send the head groundsmen all over, trying to get the sort of wickets that allow batters to trust their techniques and stuff like that. And we also have some probably technical deficiencies that carry on from the Under-19, the youth level up to the national team."