T20 form 'best for a decade' after IPL, says Cummins
Australia's Pat Cummins said his T20 game is in the best spot it's been in a decade and enters the T20 World Cup with his confidence high following a successful Indian Premier League.
The 31-year-old played every IPL match, took 18 wickets and guided Sunrisers Hyderabad to the final, leaving the fast bowler feeling extremely assured with how his short-form game is placed.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. "Probably as well as I have for the last 10 years really," Cummins told cricket.com.au of his T20 bowling on Monday.
"We played 17 games straight (at the IPL). For the most part, international T20s are after the Test series, and you've got to try and hit a yorker or a slower ball, and then go back to a Test series.
"So just getting the pace of the game and executing some of those balls that you need more in T20 cricket than in other formats, I feel really well placed," he continued.
It's not just the skill execution, because Cummins said sticking to the same format makes a "huge difference" to the tactical side of bowling too, as the plans for each spell and each delivery is so different from the other formats.
"A lot of T20 bowling in particular is about thinking through your sequencing of which ball to bowl or when, and I think over the course of the season you get to learn pretty quickly what's working and what isn't," he said.
"Even if it doesn't work first game, and you feel like it's never going to work every game, but you know that if you zoom out over the course of the tournament it's going to work for you. So it's nice coming in here with that confidence," explained Cummins.
Cummins was one of the final members of Australia's 15-man squad to link up with the team, landing in Barbados in the early hours of Saturday morning, five days out from Australia's first match against Oman.
During Australia's training session at a blustery 3Ws Oval on Monday, the Test and one-day international captain had his first bowl in the West Indies, not just for the tour, but ever, having never previously ventured to the islands of the Caribbean sea.
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