2023 World Cup-winning Australian cricketers not part of the T20I squad for a five-match series in India reached back home earlier in the day. Contrary to popular expectations among Indian fans, captain Pat Cummins and others astonishingly landed at the Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport to a dull response.
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Had India lifted the cup, it is needless to say that scenes here would’ve been entirely different. When India had won ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, people had thronged the roads in jest to greet the team. The same, if not more, would’ve surely been the case this time around as well. Not surprisingly, the celebrations would’ve definitely persisted to this date.
However, such affection coming at a cost of disrupting normal lives is not a trend in other countries. Irrespective of the vast difference between the number of fans in the two countries, people not leaving the roads isn’t part of the culture down under.
Apart from the popularity factor, Australia doing insanely well in the history of ICC tournaments could’ve probably made their fans used to winning World Cups. Readers must note that they have won a combined total of 22 ICC tournaments across Men’s (six ODI World Cups, one T20 World Cup and two Champions Trophy titles) and Women’s (seven ODI World Cups and six T20 World Cups) cricket till now.
Pat Cummins Had Won IPL 2014 At KKR
It is worth of a mention that Cummins’ experience of reaching home as a World Cup-winning captain was in total contrast with what he had experienced after winning Indian Premier League 2014 at Kolkata Knight Riders. One of the most passionate sporting fans in the country, citizens of the city of joy had poured immense love to the franchise on winning their second title within three years.
Cummins was ecstatic to see nearly 1,00,000 fans gathering at the Eden Gardens upon their return to the city from Bengaluru. Cummins, who had played a solitary match in what was his maiden season of the IPL, had revealed the same in a video doing the rounds on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
“I was part of Kolkata Knight Riders. We won in, I think, was about 2014, and a couple of days after the final, we went back to Kolkata, went to the stadium just to do a kind of walking fanfare and the stadium was packed. It was 80,000-90,000 people just waving at the team and then the streets were lined with a few hundred thousand people just to get a glimpse of the team. It’s just a different world,” Cummins had said.
After representing the Knight Riders in 2014 and 2015, he returned to the franchise for a record price of INR 15.50 crore during IPL 2020 auction. It was not the best of seasons for him as he just scalped 12 wickets across 14 matches. Having opted out of the second phase of IPL 2021, Cummins was released ahead of IPL 2022 auction. That said, the management bought him back in the auction albeit with a pay cut.
