PAK vs AUS | Cummins subtly takes toll on benign Rawalpindi pitch

Australia skipper Pat Cummins seems unimpressed with the benign Rawalpindi wicket, he feels that this pitch was created to nullify the pace attack of both sides and the draw was not a bad result despite Aussies only picking four wickets in this Test match.

In five days of this historic Test, only 14 wickets fell. Pakistan posted 476/4 and 252/0 across two innings. Surprisingly, the star-studded Australian bowling attack only managed to bag four wickets throughout the resultless Test. 

Labuschagne's direct-hit run-out was the fourth wicket, so technically Australian bowlers only managed to take three wickets in this Test. Australia's bowling average was 238.33 and strike-rate 478 in this Test which is the second-worst in the history of 145 years of Test cricket. Pakistan topped the list in Jamaica in 1958 where Caribbean legend Sir Garry Sobers slammed 365 not out.

Pat Cummins didn't seem disappointed with the efforts of his pacers and said, "Turning up to a pitch that's probably not a traditional pitch you would get here in Rawalpindi, and it's probably clear they've made an effort to try and nullify the pace bowling".

"I think that's a positive. And, sub-continent conditions, coming away with a draw it's not a bad result".

Cummins was satisfied with the efforts put in by his bowlers throughout this Test match and once the result looked hard to come by, he took his premiere bowlers out of the attack to keep them fresh for the second Test match.

Cummins mentioned, "I think we all tried different things. "I think all the quick bowlers, although we've spent the best part of three days out in the field, I think we've all bowled around about 25, maximum 30 overs each, which in comparison to a lot of Australian Test matches is actually a pretty light workload.

"Didn't get a huge look at reverse swing this Test, but that might come into it later on. But I was really happy with how everyone went and everyone's come through unscathed” Cummins added.

Imam had a dream Test match against Australia as he scored twin tons in this game which made him only the tenth Pakistani to achieve this feat.

The home team's openers scored the most runs by an opening pair against Australia in Test matches.

Cummins said that they need to go through their plans once again to be able to be competitive in the next Test match at Karachi.

"I thought the Pakistani batters batted really well the whole game". "Got themselves in and then once they got themselves in they were able to just tick over the score.

"We'll spend the next couple of days reviewing it, having a look at maybe different plans ahead of Karachi, expecting probably different conditions as well.

Cummins was happy with the batting performance of his batsmen with all the top four passing the 50-run mark. Australian batters probably could have piled a few more runs given the batting-friendly nature of the pitch but none of their batters were able to convert their fifties into big hundreds.

Leaving the game aside, Cummins seemed very delighted with the Rawalpindi crowd.

"They were fantastic the crowd. Really passionate crowd for obviously Pakistan but really respectful and great for our players as well. I loved that. Every time we walked onto the field they're chanting and trying to get waves from our players, which is awesome." Cummins concluded.