Australian captain Pat Cummins who won the Player of the Match award for the 4th test of the BGT 2024-25 opens on the victory said “Getting more than 400 in the first innings set the game for us”.
In the five-match test series, both teams won a match each while the third game ended as a draw. With a victory in the 4th test played at Melbourne, the hosts took a 2-1 lead and held an upper hand in the BGT 2024-25.
Speaking of the fourth test, Australia had the upper hand in the game since the first inning after securing 474 runs in the first inning. In response, India posted 369 runs in their first inning with the help of Nitish Kumar’s maiden Test century.
Australia who made 100+ runs lead scored 234 runs in their second inning while Indian star batters failed to lay a strong foundation as a result India lost the game by 184 runs.
During the post-match presentation, Pat Cummins who won the player of the match award said “What an amazing Test match, one of the best to be part of, the crowd has been ridiculous and cricket has been just as good, pretty happy change room at the moment, pretty happy to contribute.
Marnus helped me out in the second innings big time, never really know what you going to get with our batting, fortunately it came off in this game. Happy to contribute, amazing innings from Smith to hold the first innings together. Getting more than 400 in the first innings set the game for us.
You always think anything can happen. We bowled well in the first session to have them 3/30. They batted well in the middle session. We knew that we had to get one breakthrough and anything can happen and that proved to be the case.
We had plenty of runs to play with, we had plenty of fielders with the helmet around. We talk about a lot about us as a lower order, we put a lot of work into it. We know it can be the difference in a lot of Test matches and we work on ourselves a lot, to try and contribute a few more runs”.
On questioning regarding the idea of introducing Travis Head in the second inning’s bowling attack, Pat Cummins praised coach and revealed the reason behind the plan. Notably, Travis Head broke the threatening partnership between Pant and Jaiswal right after the ta.
“I give the coach the credit for that one, we were also behind on the over-rate so we thought let’s get Travis in there and he might get a breakthrough”, Pat Cummins said.
Australian captain Pat Cummins also praised Steve Smith for his extraordinary 140 in the first inning which pushed the hosts to a much comfortable zone.
“Amazing, it wasn’t an easy wicket, he showed how to bat on it. He got an opportunity and he pounced and really upped the ante with the tailenders. He also took some catches which often go unnoticed. We are really happy with the way we played, we will savour this one before we head on to Sydney”, Pat Cummins revealed.
The final match of the Border Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 will be played between 03 January and 7 January 2025 in Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney. India has to win this game to draw the series while a victory for Australia will clinch them the BGT trophy nearly after a decade. The last time, Australia won the Border Gavaskar Trophy was back in 2014/15.
