Oops, Captain Planet does it again. Why Pat Cummins keeps winning

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Oops, Captain Planet did it again. Not content with claiming the World Test Championship mace, or retaining the Ashes urn, Pat Cummins has added the ICC World Cup trophy to his collection after leading Australia to victory against India.

Travis Head might have been the man of the match after taking a spectacular outfield catch before rattling off an authoritative century, but it was Cummins who silenced the partisan crowd of 132,000 in the final at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.

Dismissing Virat Kohli will do that. It can silence a country.

Head’s catch to dismiss lethal opener Rohit Sharma put the brakes on India’s feverish start, but a sizeable target was still possible as long as Kohli strutted about the crease.

Early in his innings, he deployed textbook strokes that reminded you there’s still a place for class in cricket, no matter the format.

He leaned onto his back foot and punched a delivery to the square boundary. A few balls later, he eased his weight forward and effortlessly drove through the covers for another four.

Buoyed by delirious home crowds, Kohli had gorged on runs for a month. After he reached his fifth half century of the tournament, he was expected to cash in. When Kohli gets started, he’s almost impossible to stop.

So Cummins took it upon himself to end the party.

It’s a tricky decision for a bowling captain: when to inject yourself into the attack, balancing what’s best for the team with wanting to do it yourself, often over-playing your hand.

Captain Planet.Credit: AP

It was a thing of beauty. Give me immaculate technique instead of batters sticking out an open-faced bat while closing their eyes and hoping for the best.

But Cummins steamed in and stunned Kohli with pace and elevation. Kohli’s imperious footwork was suddenly no longer a factor: he was up on his toes, desperate to tame the snake, but instead chopped onto his stumps.

Cummins roared in celebration but the sea of blue in the stands was mute. Some fans were crying. Kohli looked like a man who’d just has his soul stolen. “It’s like we’re in library,” former Australian all-rounder Shane Watson said in commentary. That dismissal changed the game.

Since being thrust into the captaincy following the shock resignation of Tim Paine, Cummins has lost just eight matches (five Tests, three one-day internationals) from 36.

Apart from the away Test series against India earlier in the year (which was lost after a bad couple of hours in Delhi), and a late-Ashes fade-out (after winning Tests in Birmingham and Lord’s), he’s led his country with distinction.

You can’t get every session right, although that is the expectation unfairly heaped on Cummins. He will never possess the tactical smarts of Steve Waugh nor Ricky Ponting, but he’s a leader of men, that much is clear.

And he’s no dolt. At the start of the day, he set social media and internet forums ablaze after he won the coin toss and elected to bowl. It puzzled the best of judges while outraging the cricket ignorati on social media.

Those who read former fast bowler Geoff Lawson’s always compelling Sun-Herald column earlier that day would have known what was at play: that it was all about the dew, baby.

“I am yet to hear a single commentator explain the ‘dew point’,” Lawson wrote. “It’s a pretty basic combination of relative humidity, air pressure and temperature and therefore quite predictable. It is an important factor when considering whether to bat or bowl first as it affects the ground and pitch conditions in the second innings of day/night games quite a bit. Turning pitches at afternoon tea straighten out after dinner.”

Cummins admitted after the final he was torn about what to do should he win the toss, but his decision to bowl set Australia on a path to victory.

Former captain Mark Taylor: “I said at the toss, I was a little surprised that he elected to bowl first. I thought runs on the board would be the way to go, but he’s summed up the conditions well. He knew that in the dry time when there’s no dew around would be the best time to bowl.”

‘Cummins has come of age through this World Cup.’

Former captain Ponting, who has been as critical of Cummins’ tactics as anyone: “Cummins has come of age through this World Cup … There had been some criticism of his captaincy and his leadership. Not any more.”

Cummins has been mischaracterised as the man who ended Alinta’s sponsorship of the Australian team and the tenure of coach Justin Langer.

Neither is correct. Alinta has said publicly Cummins’ concerns about the company’s carbon footprint had “no bearing on our decision” to end the deal with Cricket Australia.

As for Langer’s departure, he wasn’t the only player who felt it was time for the angry little ant to move on. Cummins represented his players during that period. It’s probably why they are playing for him now.

His most admirable trait is that he’s comfortable in his own skin. Others in his position either covet public approval or become outright hostile about any criticism levelled against them.

But Cummins laughs it off. So do his close mates, who jokingly call him “Captain Planet”.

As the official world champions in both Test and ODI cricket, it’s hard to imagine a more appropriate nickname.

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