Cummins expects to ‘silence a big crowd’

Nothing is more intimidating than playing against a team that has all the support on its side. The pitch is expected to be a slow-turner, much to the liking of the home team. Australia, having played all their 10 games in different conditions, wouldn’t mind this.

“No doubt playing on your own wicket in your own country has some advantages, similar to wickets that you’ve been playing your whole life. But we’ve played a lot of cricket over here,” said Australian skipper Pat Cummins at the prematch press-conference on Saturday.

“Of all the venues, perhaps this venue - the toss isn’t as important as, say, a Mumbai Wankhede Stadium or other venues. So, we’ll be ready in terms of anything they’ll throw at us. We’ll make sure we have some plans”.

But playing in front of a one-sided full-capacity crowd vociferously supporting their home team, India--which is looking for their third 50-over global title--will be a challenge that Australia will need to manage in their quest to their sixth title.

The spectator capacity here is 132,000. And although you might be able to spot a smattering of yellow-clad Australian supporters amidst a sea of sky-blue Indians, their voices will hardly be heard unless things unfold in Australia’s favour. Cummins wants to silence the crowd.

“The crowd’s obviously going to be very one-sided but there’s nothing more satisfying than hearing a big crowd go silent and that’s the aim for us tomorrow,” he responded, when asked how they will counter pressure of over 100,000 physical fans rooting loudly for them to fail.

“You’ve just got to embrace every part of a final,” he said.

“There’s going to be noise and more people and interest and you just can’t get overwhelmed. You got to be up for it, you got to love it and just know whatever happens, it’s fine, but you just want to finish the day with no regrets.”

Even though Australia have played plenty of cricket in India and are not foreign to the noise, Cummins admitted that, on a scale, it will be bigger than what his charges have experienced before.

“It’s probably bigger than we would have experienced before but it’s not something totally foreign to what we’ve had before,” he elaborated.

“Everyone deals with it slightly differently. You’ll see Davey [Warner] probably dancing and winning the crowd over, other guys just staying in their own bubble – yeah it should be good.”

Giving credit to their opponents for being so dominant in the tournament, Cummins said that the Australians are ready to “give them a good shake”.

“There’s going to be 130,000 fans here supporting India,” he continued.

“So, it’s going to be awesome. They’ve been playing really well, undefeated. But we know, at our best, we can give them a good shake. We’ve played them quite a lot over the last couple years with success so it’s all building up for a nice final.”

Australia didn’t have a dominant World Cup campaign, unlike their opponent who had a perfect road to their fourth World Cup finals.

“I think one of the pleasing things is I still don’t feel like we’ve played the complete game,” Cummins said.

“Maybe against the Netherlands, but outside of that, we probably haven’t. There have been no huge wins. We’ve had to fight for every win, but we’ve found a way to win.”

“And different players have stood up at different times,” he reflected.

“So, I think taking that confidence, knowing that we don’t have to be at our absolute best to challenge any team, we can find a way through it.”

Cummins was part of the 2015 World Cup winning team and was the victorious captain of the Test Championships this year, beating India by 209 runs at Lords. He said it would be huge for him to lift the trophy.

“We were all kids not too long ago, watching some of those great teams win the 1999, 2003, 2007 World Cups,” he reminisced.

“That’s the opportunity ahead of us tomorrow, which is really exciting. To be captain (it) would be an absolute privilege to lift the trophy with these great bunch of blokes...2015 is still a career highlight for me, so I think tomorrow if we win, we might pip it.”

Having reached Ahmedabad on Friday, following their close 3-wicket win over South Africa in the semi-finals at the Eden Garden Stadium in Kolkata, the Australians held a training session last afternoon.