Pat Cummins’ ridiculously good career is becoming great

Adam Zampa was man of the match. Matthew Wade was a man on a mission. Pat Cummins’ contribution wasn’t celebrated as much but he was superb.

A glow has developed around Pat Cummins. It’s called greatness. As a human, he’s really, really, really ridiculously good looking enough to knock Zoolander off a few magazine covers. As a cricketer, his accomplishments are forming a timeless sheen. All I keep hearing is that he’s a crackerjack bloke. This is an oil painting of an Australian athlete.

Cummins and wily little wrist spinner Adam Zampa were the stars of the 36-run shellacking of England in the T20 World Cup match at Bridgetown’s rather farcical Kensington Oval, where one of the square boundaries was just 58 metres away. Cameron McEvoy could swim a four in about 21.5 seconds; captain Mitch Marsh flicked a bead of sweat from his forehead and it cleared the pickets; diamond Dave Warner and Travis Head clipped three square sixes from Will Jacks’ opening over; Mark Woods’ first over from the same end went for 22; Under 12s coaches would see such a piffling boundary and tell their players it’s OK, young fellas, you’ll get to play on proper grounds when you’re older.

When Australia defended 7-201, Zampa and the oil painting rolled their arms over from the horror end. Zampa whipped up 2/28 to be man of the match. Cummins mixed 2-23 into a superb bowling pot. All the leather-flingers did their jobs and it was goodbye Poms, who dawdled to 6-165 as if they forgot it was a game of T20.

“Very pleased,” Marsh said. “All-round game was outstanding. Great game. The bowlers did their thing. We have an experienced group. Patty was outstanding, tough end to bowl from. We needed hard overs from the big guns. We’ll keep learning in these conditions, keep improving and keep progressing through the tournament.”

Cummins was the star of The Test, the documentary detailing last year’s ICC World Test Championship triumph and the retention of the Ashes. Under all sorts of cranium-bursting pressure as skipper, dealing with the Bairstow stumping, the long-faced loons in the Long Room at Lords, the hype around BazBall, the loss of the injured Nathan Lyon and the knife-edge contest for the urn, the oil painting covered himself in glory in deeds and demeanour.

He politely yet firmly stood his ground against allegations of despicable sportsmanship re the Bairstow incident. He backed his teammates unfailingly. He won the Edgbaston Test with his fearless bat. He bowled like a trooper at 140km/h and beyond. He negotiated endlessly curly press conferences with the wisdom of an owl. His hug with his father, Peter, at Edgbaston, following the loss of his mother, Maria, last year to breast cancer, was beautiful. There was a glimpse of the crackerjack bloke. The footage with his missus, Becky, and their young son, Albie, when he said cricket was great but this was “real life,” was both heartfelt and heartwarming.

His other life, his sporting life, is going OK, too. Australia’s World Cup quest is off to a flyer. Marsh and Cummins have cool heads, which means vice-captain Matthew Wade complements them perfectly, keeping wickets like a head with its chook cut off. The mouth is unaffected. Wade is a bit of a John McEnroe, playing better when he’s angry, so’s more than pleased to engage in a verbal fight. He found one with England skipper and gloveman Jos Buttler, and won by knockout.

It began when Wade backed away from a ball from Adil Rashid. The England spinner delivered it anyway. Wade tapped it away then told umpire Nitin Menon that it should have been a dead ball. Menon told him, but you hit it. Wade thought Buttler should have intervened. Buttler did nothing of the sort and Wade had a bee in his bonnet from that moment forth. He smoked a quick, unbeaten 17 runs from ten deliveries before celebrating the dismissal of the dangerous Buttler (47 off 28) like good had overcome evil.

Zampa said of the dead ball that wasn’t ruled a dead ball because Wade blocked it: “I think he felt like that it was the same, basically, as letting it hit him in the leg on a dead ball. It doesn’t take much to fire Wadey up.”

Buttler said: “I think he pulled away and then played it, so I think the umpire was like, ‘Well, you sort of played it.’ To be honest, I was thinking about many other things at that point. Whether I should have said, ‘I don’t know if he pulled away and let’s just carry on’ – the umpire just seemed to be like, ‘Well, because he played it, it’s a dot ball.‘ I can’t speak for him, whether he looked up late, but he seemed ready and then pulled out very late. I think that’s what the umpire was saying.“

Zampa is a laid-back soul from Byron Bay. With Wade in his ear, he was fired up like tourists had invaded his coastal town and taken all the good parking spots. Zampa dismissed England opener Phil Salt (37 off 23 balls) with his first delivery and took care of Buttler in his second over. He roared nearly as loudly and antagonistically as the conductor of the choir, Wade, while Marsh and the oil painting delivered cruiser grins.

“Wadey’s a fiery guy,” Zampa said. “Super competitive. Something ticked him over a little bit today and that’s what we love about Wadey. After the six or seventh over mark he came up to me and said, ‘Let’s not sit back here. Let’s go. We can’t wait for them to make the mistake because they’re not going to’. Basically, stay in the contest was his message. That’s the beautiful thing about Wadey and having him behind the stumps. He’s so competitive and you hear his voice and that makes a huge difference. If you’ve got a wicketkeeper who is quiet, whose body language is the opposite of someone like Wadey, you can feel that as well. I think England were under the pump and it showed.”

Australia’s next match is against Namibia at Antigua’s Sir Vivian Richards Stadium on Wednesday at 10.30am (AEST). The good oil has Marsh’s men as World Cup favourites, and Cummins in the same sentence as Keith Miller as a supreme Australian all-rounder. He’s never had a Messerschmitt up his backside, as Miller so famously did, but he’s become adept enough at handling sporting pressure as his really, really, really ridiculously good career becomes ever greater.