Australia captain Pat Cummins on their stunning win over India in the ICC Cricket World Cup final
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00:00 Congratulations Pat. What does that mean to you?
00:07 That's huge. I think that's the pinnacle of international cricket winning a one day
00:17 World Cup. Especially over here in India in front of a crowd like this.
00:21 Phones off please Cole. First press conference.
00:24 Get rid of that bloke. Yeah, that's huge. It's been a big year for everyone. But our
00:31 cricket team has been to here in India, Ashes, World Test Championship and to top it off
00:41 with this is just huge. These are the moments you'll remember for the rest of your life.
00:45 Why is it the pinnacle?
00:48 Every international team comes together. You only get a shot at it every four years. Even
00:55 if you have a ten year career you might only get two chances at it. The whole cricket world
01:02 stops with this World Cup. It doesn't get any better.
01:12 Pat, you always spoke about the 2015 World Cup being a highlight of your career. But
01:19 to win a World Cup in India at this stadium with so many people and the silence you spoke
01:25 about as well. Can you just take us through that journey today from getting to the ground
01:29 to now?
01:30 I always like to say I'm pretty relaxed but I was a little bit nervous this morning. Just
01:37 pacing around waiting for it to get started. Just seeing the sea of blue in the hotel.
01:44 Getting nearer the ground and seeing the sea of blue walking, making its way to the ground.
01:48 All the cars parked with their selfie cameras out. You knew you were walking into something
01:54 pretty special. Then to walk out for the toss and just see 130,000 blue Indian shirts. It's
02:03 an experience you'll never forget. Awesome day. The good thing was they weren't too noisy
02:10 for most of it.
02:13 Pat, a couple of things. Now that it's run and won, what did you really think of the
02:18 pitch and what was behind the decision to bowl first given how well it worked out?
02:25 The pitch played pretty well actually. It was quite slow and basically no bounce. But
02:33 I don't think the bounce was anything different to anywhere else in the tournament. It probably
02:39 didn't spin as much as I thought it was. Yesterday it looked really dry but it was quite firm
02:43 today. The wicket was fine really. The toss, we were kind of umming and ahhing right up
02:50 until the toss really. But I thought half a chance of the wicket getting better tonight.
03:00 In a World Cup game you can make a mistake bowling and it doesn't really matter too much.
03:05 But if you make a mistake batting and you're under pressure it can be fatal. It just felt
03:10 like it was the right time to go out and have a bowl.
03:13 Just given how big a year it's been for you on so many fronts, how are you feeling emotionally
03:20 given the spectrum of emotions you've felt this year?
03:26 At this moment just incredibly proud really of the year we've had. I've obviously had
03:31 a really big year. I know my family at home is watching. Just got a message from Dad saying
03:36 he's had a lot of 4am wake up, not going to bed until 4am. So he's as pumped as anything.
03:43 So yeah, you sacrifice a lot to play for Australia and everyone on the team has. We've spent
03:50 a lot of this year away. But we do it for these moments. My wife and two girls are probably
03:57 asleep, hopefully asleep. But they're all pumped. They do the journey with us. Everyone's
04:02 got their own story but there's a lot of proud people out there in our team.
04:17 As a leader we saw very good leadership from you, especially going back to Afghanistan
04:24 when you made a good supporting role with Maxwell. How do you feel about the leadership
04:29 throughout the tournament and how do you rate Travis Head's innings today?
04:35 Travis Head was phenomenal. I think I said it on stage. I think a lot of credit should
04:42 also go to Andrew McDonald and George Bailey, the selectors, to take a punt. He had a broken
04:49 hand for the half of the tournament but to keep him in the squad was a huge risk. And
04:56 the medical team were fantastic obviously to get him into a place where he could perform.
05:00 So that was a big risk. I think we could have been made to look really silly if that didn't
05:05 pay off but you've got to take those risks to win a tournament. And Trav, the player,
05:09 we've seen in Test cricket, he epitomises everything I want out of a cricket team. He
05:15 takes the game on, he plays with a smile, he just puts the pressure right back onto
05:20 the opposition and he's just great fun to be around. So I couldn't be happier for Trav.
05:27 Pat, as Australians you give a lot of emphasis to Test cricket and also Ashes. As a captain
05:34 you have won the World Test Championship, as a captain you have won this World Cup.
05:38 Which is the best moment or it will come when you beat England in Ashes?
05:42 England in Ashes? This is, no doubt. The World Test Championship was huge, like again another
05:49 two year campaign. But an ODI World Cup, it's just a rich history I think. And to come over
05:56 to a place like India where you know the conditions are so different to back home, it's pretty
06:07 gruelling. Eleven games in five, six weeks. But the way the group stuck together and got
06:14 through it, holding the medal, that's the pinnacle.
06:19 Pat, you touched on Trav there, can you just take us inside the humming and aahing about
06:25 whether you would pick him, did you ever think you might leave him out? And on a similar
06:29 front with Marnus, you guys left him out of an 18 man squad or whatever it was a few months
06:35 ago, can you take us inside that too?
06:38 Yeah, I'll probably start with the Marnus one. We wanted to be pretty brave this World
06:44 Cup, we didn't want to limp into the semi-finals, we wanted to be the team that could score
06:49 400. And you saw that the way we shaped up with Trav, Warner and then having Marshy at
06:56 number three, we wanted to be really aggressive. And then a couple of our Oriannas are obviously
07:04 aggressive to finish off the inning, so we would rather fail that way. But then Marnus
07:11 just showed his class and in South Africa you had to pick him, he was fantastic and
07:16 he was playing a different style to probably what he did for the first start of his ODI
07:20 career and it was paying off. And we know he's a gun, so you had to try and find room
07:27 for him.
07:28 And then the Trav head one, we thought his World Cup was straight over. It wasn't
07:34 until I think it was about the next night afterwards where Ronnie came up to me and
07:38 he's like, "I haven't slept all last night, I think we're going to keep him.
07:42 We're going to take the risk, he might be right for the Netherlands and then if we're
07:47 going to make the finals and we want to win the World Cup, I think he needs to be there
07:50 for the finals." So yeah, it was his idea and again great work by the medical team.
07:57 It means you probably don't have the second spinner in your squad, which is a risk, but
08:02 yeah obviously paid off.
08:04 Just on today's game, when you got Virod out, was that about as sweet a moment as you've
08:08 had on a cricket field?
08:11 Yeah I think so, yeah. We did take a second in the huddle just to acknowledge the silence
08:16 that was going around the crowd. Yeah, it just felt like it was one of those days where
08:21 it was all made for him to score another hundred like he normally does and yeah that was satisfying.
08:26 Pat, you'll remember you went to see Bruce Springsteen I think during the Ashes right
08:31 at the start of the summer to prepare for one of the days of the Ashes. What was last
08:35 night's preparation?
08:36 Yeah, boss wasn't playing at a Met about last night. What did we do last night? Very chilled,
08:43 we had a team meeting and then yeah a few of the boys sat around, had dinner and then
08:50 played about half an hour of Call of Duty. That's about my limit and then I hop off and
08:55 let the real boys go and get a few wins.
08:58 Pat, as a World Cup winning captain, what will be your suggestion to the men who matter
09:05 about the format, about this format, the ODI format, the future of ODI format?
09:10 Yeah, I mean it's hard to say. I must say, maybe because we won, but I did fall in love
09:18 with ODI again this World Cup. I think the scenario where every game really matters,
09:25 it does mean a bit different to just a bilateral. I don't know, the World Cup's got such a
09:33 rich history I'm sure it's going to be around for a long time. There's so many wonderful
09:39 games, so many wonderful stories within this last couple of months. I think there's definitely
09:45 a place.
09:47 Pat, congratulations first of all. When Alan Border won the first World Cup for Australia
09:54 and India in 1987, the Australian players were not well versed with Indian spinner-friendly
10:01 wickets. As of now, almost every Australian player is playing in IPL. So do you think
10:08 that it helps to be very well acquainted with the nature and mood of the Indian wickets,
10:14 especially the spinning-friendly wickets? Does it help?
10:17 Yeah, it does help. I mean in white-ball cricket you still don't get spinning wickets all that
10:22 often, particularly in IPL, but for sure it helps. I think I've said it a few times, pretty
10:29 much everyone in our XI's probably played more white-ball cricket in India in the last
10:34 five or ten years than we have in Australia, so no doubt that helps.
10:43 Pat, there have been a couple of years where Australia have had a really tough time going
10:49 through, and yet you've come out, you've won a World Test championship, you've now won
10:52 a World Cup. Is it fair to say that Australia's back of the perch is the best side in the
10:56 world?
10:57 Yeah, I mean I don't know, it's probably for others to judge that, but yeah, I couldn't
11:06 be prouder of the team for the last two years. We've had some tough series, but we've won
11:12 some amazing series as well, and everyone's stood up and we feel like we've got a great
11:19 red-ball team, and the white-ball team's won two trophies in the last few years, so
11:24 yeah, things are looking pretty rosy.
11:27 Captain, I just wanted to know, the making of a champion team, you've been involved
11:37 with this team for a long time. How has it been? How tough is it to go out there and
11:44 do the job every time?
11:46 Yeah, I mean it's really tough because you're playing against the best teams in the world,
11:50 and every team wants to achieve the same thing, so it's really tough. I always keep saying
11:56 about our team, we've got a lot of experience, and we've got many different characters,
12:01 which is great, you want that in a team, but everyone buys in, everyone does what the team
12:05 needs, everyone's there to look after each other, and I think that's something that's
12:11 contributed to a few of our successes over the years.
12:14 Skipper, what was the thinking behind giving short spells to your bowlers, all seven bowlers,
12:22 except you who bowled five overs, one long spell. All other bowlers bowled either one
12:26 over spell or two over spell, what was the thinking behind that?
12:29 Yeah, in say Test cricket, when you're trying to find a wicket, you might change some fielders
12:34 and some bowling plans. It feels like in one day cricket you don't have as many options,
12:39 so we thought maybe the way to upset the rhythm rather than setting some wacky fields is to
12:45 just go one over spell. It seemed to take the man over to settle in, so we just kept
12:53 going and tried pretty much everyone there for an over, and everyone did a great job.
12:58 It makes sequencing in the back ten overs a little bit easier as well when you know
13:04 you've got plenty of resources to draw on.
13:06 Did it help that Australia had faced more crisis situations than India? Did it help
13:17 in conquering the fear of failure in the final?
13:22 Hard to say. It's really hard to be standoffish in a final, but we made it really clear in
13:31 the group we're all in on making sure we weren't the team that stood off today. We wanted to
13:35 take the game on, play the way that got us to the final. Maybe that comes from playing
13:42 in other finals before, also maybe missing out on some other finals in different tournaments.
13:47 I can't speak for the opposition, but the group today was as confident going into finals
13:54 as I've seen the team.
13:55 the team.