The taste of the World Cup victory seems to linger longer as Pat Cummins reflects on it. Australia had won eight consecutive matches before the final and faced defeat against India in the final held at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on November 19.
After the World Cup, some Australian players have stayed in India for the T20 series while Cummins and others have returned home. The captain, who led Australia to their sixth World Cup victory, mentioned that he has taken something from the World Cup that will stay with him even in his grave. Among those moments, one is the silence in a gallery filled with the cheers of a million people.
Before the final, Cummins expressed his wish to silence the Indian spectators. On that day, there were more than 92,000 spectators at the Narendra Modi Stadium. Initially, the Indian supporters were jubilant when India started batting. With every run scored by India, different corners of the gallery erupted with joy. Despite the noise for each run, it was the opposition’s jubilation that was a different challenge for the Australians.
Amidst such an intense atmosphere, silence took over in the 29th over of the match. Cummins, bowling, had Virat Kohli, who was batting aggressively, as his target. He tried to play across the line, but the ball flicked the leg and broke the stumps. Kohli’s departure for 54 runs off 63 balls left the entire gallery stunned. That moment has become the focal point of Cummins’ recent interviews. In an interview with The Age, Cummins was asked if he could remember any moment from the final that he could carry into his death at the age of 70.
In response, Cummins talked about Kohli’s wicket, saying, “I was very excited to get that wicket. Then when I stood still, Steve Smith said, ‘Let’s just take a second to listen to the crowd.’ We just stayed silent for that moment. I felt like I was in a library amidst the deafening noise. There were thousands of Indian fans all around, but it was completely silent. I’ll cherish that moment for a long time.”
