‘The biggest challenge is that you’ve got ten overs to bowl’ – Pat Cummins reflects on challenges of ODI cricket

Pat Cummins. (Photo Source: ICC/Twitter)

The ODI World Cup 2023 is well underway, but the marquee tournament did not get off to the best of starts for the Pat Cummins-led Australia. The side took on India in their first game of the tournament and succumbed to a bitter loss against the Rohit Sharma-led side.

Speaking of the same, Australian skipper Pat Cummins came forward to talk about how challenging the ODI format has been for him personally. The 30-year-old talked about how he only focused on Test and T20 cricket in the early stages of his career and how his role changed in ODI cricket.

Cummins made his ODI debut in 2011, and over the years, he has only played 78 matches in the format, which is where a lot of confusion and headache stems from. According to the pacer, his tactical approach to the format is what needs work.

“Early in my career, I found it a hard balance between Test cricket and T20, and I was getting too funky. With one-day cricket, your roles can be very different – from being an opening bowler with a ball that swings, to coming on first change and maybe bowling cross-seamers where you are trying to defend and get your wickets through pressure. It’s a different kind of challenge to the other formats,” Pat Cummins was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.

It’s quite a physical format: Cummins

Furthermore, Cummins also talked about how one of the biggest challenges in the format is how the bowlers have ten overs to bowl. Branding ODI cricket as one of the physically taxing formats, he did state that it is quite tough, but he has been enjoying it.

“The biggest challenge is that you’ve got ten overs [to bowl]. It’s quite a physical format, I find it the most physically taxing if you are doing two or three games in a week. We are doing 15k (kilometres) in a 50-over match,” Cummins said.

“In T20, if you bowl one really good over that can be match-winning. But in one-day cricket, it’s not normally the case, and it’s rare that conditions are in the bowlers’ favour, which is fine. It’s just a challenge you’ve got to try and deal with. It’s tough but I do enjoy it,” he added.