Pat Cummins returned with figures of 6/28 on Day two of the WTC 2025 final against South Africa.
Australia captain Pat Cummins gave former England pacer James Anderson a befitting reply after the latter compared him with South Africa’s Kagiso Rabada ahead of the 2025 World Test Championship (WTC) final.
On Day two of the WTC final at Lord’s on Thursday, Pat Cummins registered impressive figures of 6/28 to rattle South Africa for 138 in their first innings reply to Australia’s 212. The 32-year-old got rid of Wiaan Mulder, skipper Temba Bavuma, Kyle Verreynne, Marco Jansen, David Bedingham and Kagiso Rabada.
It has to be noted that Kagiso Rabada has a slight edge over Pat Cummins in the ICC Test rankings for bowlers. The Proteas pacer is in second place with 837 rating points whereas Pat Cummins is a spot below in third place with 824 rating points.
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Kagiso Rabada, like Cummins, produced excellent figures of 5/51 in the first innings. The rating points gap is only a narrow 13, which means the New South Wales pacer can still replace Kagiso Rabada at second place at the end of the World Test Championship final.
During the pre-match press conference, Pat Cummins was asked by a journalist on James Anderson’s remark. “Pat, Jimmy Anderson was here yesterday watching you guys train and he said he rated Rabada over you, I just wondered what your response to that might be?,” asked the journalist. To this, Pat Cummins replied saying: “Cool, no worries”.
Coming back to the match, Australia gained a lead of 74 runs heading into their second innings. At the time of writing this report, the defending WTC champions were 24/0 with Usman Khawaja (4) and Marnus Labuschagne (15) in the middle and had a lead of 98 runs. South Africa are yet to win an ICC tournament since clinching the 1998 Knockout Trophy. The Hansie Cronje-led Proteas had beaten Brian Lara’s West Indies by four wickets in that final.
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