Cricket Week Recap: From Pat Cummins’ Five-Wicket Haul to Quinton de Kock’s Match-Winning Knock, A Look at Finest Individual Performances
Pat Cummins has already made big news since past few weeks after getting picked by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for 15.5 crores in the recently-concluded Indian Premier League auction. He proved his mettle by a brilliant bowling spell against Kiwis in the recently concluded Test Match against New Zealand.
It has indeed been a wonderful year for cricket fans around the world where we witnessed the best final in the history of ICC Cricket World Cup followed by a brilliant Ashes Series. Even T20I matches lived up to the expectation of fans. The last week of 2019 saw Cricket giving a perfect end to the year, where we saw a classy match-winning knock from Proteas wicket-keeper batsman Quinton de Kock against England and from bowling segment it was Australia's Pat Cummins five-wicket haul against New Zealand. There were some more fine performances in the past week, which we will discuss below in our cricket week recap. Tim Paine Reckons Pat Cummins, Says He is Clearly Best Bowler in the World.
Pat Cummins has already made big news since past few weeks after getting picked by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for 15.5 crores in the recently-concluded Indian Premier League auction. He proved his mettle by a brilliant bowling spell against Kiwis in the recently concluded Test Match against New Zealand. Also, this past week during the on-going Big Bash League in Australia Rashid Khan's camel bat grabbed the attention of many people. The Afghanistan all-rounder Rashid was awarded Man of the Match while playing for Adelaide Strikers where his figures of 2/22 in 4 overs played a major role in Sydney Thunder's defeat. Now without any further delay, let us discuss in brief about the best performances in cricket this past week. Rashid Khan Comes Up With 'Camel Bat' During Melbourne Renegades vs Adelaide Strikers BBL 2019-20 Clash.
Pat Cummins- Five-Wicket Haul vs New Zealand
Australia squared off against New Zealand in the Boxing day Test at Melbourne Cricket Ground. The home team already led the series by 1-0 before playing this match. In reply to Australia's 467 runs, New Zealand managed to make only 148 runs in the 1st inning, where Pat Cummins put the Kiwis on the backfoot. The Aussie pacer had the figures of 5/28 which included important wickets of Tom Latham, Tom Blundell and Ross Taylor. Australia won this Test match by 247 runs after New Zealand got restricted on 240 runs while chasing a mammoth total of 487 runs.
Travis Head-114 vs New Zealand
The left-handed Australian batsman Travis Head scored an important century against New Zealand in the recently concluded Boxing day Test. His knock of 114 runs against Kiwis helped Australia post 467 runs on the board which indeed had put them in the commanding situation. Head was seen playing some responsible shot and did a pretty good job to take the Australian inning deep along with skipper Tim Paine. The 26 years old Travis Head was adjudged Man of the Match for his blistering knock.
Kagiso Rabada- Brilliant Bowling Spell vs England
The South African pacer Kagiso Rabada played an important role in his team victory by picking up crucial wickets at regular intervals in the recently-concluded Test against England. Kagiso Rabada had figures of 3/68 in 1st inning where England got restricted to 181 runs in reply to Soth Africa's 284 runs. While in the 2nd inning the Proteas pacer scalped four wickets as England got all-out on 268 runs to lose the match by 107 runs.
Quinton de Kock- Match Winning Knock vs England
Quinton de Kock played a vital knock of 95 runs in the 1st inning of the 1st Test match against England played at Centurion. He used good temperament and played some safe shots to helped his team reach a decent score. South Africa was struggling at 111/5, from that point de Kock's bought his experience into the game and carried the inning forward sensibly. In the second inning, the wicket-keeper batsman scored 34 runs as South Africa made 284 and 272 runs in 1st and 2nd inning respectively.
Tom Curran- All-Round Performance vs Sydney Thunder, Big Bash League 2019-20
The 24 years old England's bowling all-rounder helped his team Sydney Thunder win an exciting super-over game against Sydney Thunder in the on-going Big Bash League 2019-20. He had figures of 2/23 in 4 overs while from the bat he contributed 35 runs from 17 balls to help the score get level. Sydney Sixers batsmen did well in the end just to reach 149 runs where Curran batted at a strike rate of 205.88. In the super-over it was Tom Curran's brilliant bowling that helped Sixers defend 16 runs. Thunder batsmen Alex Hales and Usman Khawaja completely failed to read first four deliveries of the super-over bowled by Tom Curran where they ended up making only 5 runs from 4 balls. In the end, two sixes required from last two balls for victory just proved to be too much for Alex Hales to take Thunders across the line.
In the coming year 2020, we can look forward to some more exciting actions from the World of Cricket. Big Bash League will continue to entertain us in the coming year, but fans would, however, look forward to India's three matches T20I series against Sri Lanka. Also, it will be interesting to see how England fight-back after their defeat against South Africa in the 1st Test match.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 30, 2019 10:05 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).