Pat Cummins said he was preparing for an “era-defining” few weeks after leading his Australia side to victory in the World Test Championship final just five days before the Ashes get under way at Edgbaston. “We’ve seen it as one big tour with two huge titles to play for,” he said. “It’s good to tick the first one off.”
This match featured the best teams of the past two years of Test cricket, Australia ultimately overwhelming India by 209 runs, with a fresh cycle about to get under way in Birmingham.
“I’d say whether we like it or not Ashes tend to define eras and teams,” Cummins said.
“I think the great thing about this final is we feel like we played awesome cricket for the last two years, so to be there at the end holding the trophy feels really well deserved. Away Ashes are bloody hard to win, I think it’s been 20‑odd years [actually 22], so it’s not going to be easy but if we were to win it that is legacy‑defining stuff, yeah.”
Rohit Sharma, whose India side have now lost in the first two WTC finals, said he would prefer the title to be decided over three matches rather than one. “I would love that,” he said, “but is there time? That’s the big question. But in a big event like this you need to have fair opportunities to both teams. You work hard for two years and then you only have one shot at it. You cannot get into that rhythm, that momentum that you need in Test cricket.”
Cummins perhaps understandably disagreed: “Ideally you’d have a 50‑match series but Olympics come down to one race to win a gold medal, NFL, NRL seasons have finals. It’s sport.”
Intriguingly, Sharma hinted that he was ready to adopt a full Bazball approach to Test cricket. Asked if too many of India’s batters had been guilty of lapses of concentration in this game, he said: “We told the boys to play freely, and if the ball is there to be hit then hit it. There were no lapses of concentration, it’s just that we want to play a different way. We want to do something different.”
Asked if this was the end of a road for an ageing team, he said: “There will be some talks about what brand of cricket we want to play in the next two years, and who are the guys who can do it for us. That’s the question we need to find answers for.”
