Kolkata (West Bengal) [India] : Australia skipper Pat Cummins addressed concerns of rain looming over the second semi-final clash between the Baggy Greens and South Africa at Eden Gardens.
According to the latest weather forecast, rain is likely to hinder the game on Thursday. With the forecast suggesting rain and a possible cyclone that could force the game to the reserve day, there’s potential for the match to extend, reducing the gap between the final and semi-final.
In a pre-match press conference, Cummins was quizzed about whether such a scenario could affect the team, to which he replied, “Yeah, I had a bit of a look at the weather. It’s always kind of hard to judge. It seems to change a little bit and one website tells you something and another one tells you the opposite.”
“So yeah, I guess it’s something to think about but I mean you can’t forward plan too much with the weather. So yeah, we’ll turn up, expect to play 50 over match tomorrow, any of that shifts on us well – I’m sure in real time we can kind of adjust as needed. Yeah, it feels like it hasn’t really rained here for the last couple of months so to see the weather for two days looking like that’s not ideal. But in terms of short turnaround, it’s fine. We’ve played lots of ODIs where you’re playing on Friday, flying to a different city playing on Sunday. So, it’s not too big of a deal,” Cummins added.
One of the most talked about things regarding the Australian camp is Marnus Labuschagne wearing keeper gloves possibly hinting at a role behind the stumps.
But Cummins ruled out the possibility of Labuschagne featuring as a wicketkeeper and said, “He won’t be keeping wickets. We’ve got two very accomplished wicketkeepers here on tour. Now, I did say to him after training yesterday, because I saw him bowl off spin, leg spin, short fielding catching, outfield catching, batting, hitting fielding hits and then batting in the nets against spin, and pacers. I was like what have we, you forgot to do bowling, fast bowling today, what’s happened? So, he’ll probably be down here later bowing, fast bowing.”