Cummins goes into bat for Aussie top order

PAT Cummins has warned big-talking Pakistan to underestimate Australia’s batting line-up at its peril this summer.

With the tourists’ exciting new pace attack dominating Australia A in Perth this week, there’s been a lot of bluster coming from the Pakistan ranks as they chase a historic first Test series win down under.

Star opener David Warner was particularly poor, averaging just 9.5 in 10 innings, during Australia’s Ashes series in England, while Marcus Harris and Usman Khawaja have both been dropped for next week’s series opener in Brisbane. Cummins, though, said bring it on if Pakistan considered Australia’s top order to be brittle, or even a weak link.

“Yeah perfect. Obviously the pink-ball Aussie A game over in Perth, you can’t look into that too much,” Cummins said yesterday.

“The pink ball is really hard to bat [against] at times. The ball zips around. We’re really confident when we play at the Gabba. Our record there starting off the summer is really good and we’ve got guys who have been churning out runs.

“You’ve got Steve Smith, the best batter in the world, Dave Warner, Marnus [Labuschagne], Trav Head, Matt Wade. These guys have all scored big runs in shield games or Test matches the last couple of months. I wouldn’t be looking too much into the last week [in Perth].”

Cummins did concede Australia’s batsmen could have their hands full at times dealing with the likes of young leftarm quick Shaheen Afridi, 16year-old sensation Naseem Shah and veteran seamer Imran Khan.

“It seems like they’ve got a couple of really young bowlers who are bowling quick and quite lively,” he said.