Pat Cummins showed his class in the game against Rajasthan Royals as the Australian pacer got rid of Steve Smith with a perfect set-up and he has well and truly silenced the critics.
When IPL 2020 started for Kolkata Knight Riders against Mumbai Indians, Pat Cummins had just come out of an extended six-day quarantine in Abu Dhabi. The rust and lack of rhythm clearly showed in his bowling and he was carted all over the Sheikh Zayed stadium in Abu Dhabi. Lacking pace and bowling in the right lengths, Cummins was dispatched for 49 runs in three overs. The expensive display saw many people troll Pat Cummins and they criticised him by mentioning his price tag of Rs 15.5 crore.
In the IPL 2020 auction, Cummins had become the most expensive foreign player bought in the history of the Indian Premier League as he was taken by Kolkata Knight Riders for a massive amount. Following all the criticism for his performance against Mumbai Indians, Cummins put up a brilliant show in the game against Sunrisers Hyderabad and he ended with 1/19 off four overs, the lone wicket coming of the dangerous Jonny Bairstow.
Level raised against RR
Buoyed by the performance against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Cummins raised his level against Rajasthan Royals at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. After Kolkata Knight Riders had managed to reach 174 thanks to Shubman Gill, Eoin Morgan and a cameo from Cummins, he came on to bowl the second over. With his second ball, he managed to make Steve Smith hop on the crease to defend a pacy delivery. His next three balls were short and angled in, with Smith missing one slog, getting comprehensively beaten on the next and almost holing out in the third delivery.
On the fourth ball, Cummins bowled another slog as Smith made room and tried to slog it to the leg side but got a faint under-edge that was taken by Dinesh Karthik. In that exhibition of bowling, Cummins had shown the best Test batsman in the world who was the boss. The right-arm pacer would bowl three overs and concede just 13 runs as Shivam Mavi and Kamlesh Nagarkoti wrecked the Rajasthan Royals batting order.
After the match, Smith admitted that he came out second best in the duel. “It wasn’t a great battle (with Cummins), he won easily and spoke to him now and he said you smack those in the nets, sometimes you just get a good one. Didn’t quite go to plan. That happens in T20 cricket sometimes, we have a few areas to improve on, and keep moving forward. You could go one way or another (with the toss). KKR like to chase, so we planned to put their death bowling under pressure but obviously couldn’t do that as we lost too many wickets upfront. Few of us still thought we were playing in Sharjah. It did (feel a lot different), the far side is a very big side and we didn’t see too many balls going there and the other side is slightly shorter. We probably didn’t adapt to the dimensions and the wicket, also dropped a few catches which cost us. It is about forming whatever XI is best for the conditions we are facing,” Smith said.
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 "Pat Cummins IPL 2020 KKR")
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