Australia captain Pat Cummins said that his team’s massive Ashes 2021-22 series win is a "great sign of the strength of Australian cricket" after the tourists crushed England by an innings and 14 runs in the Boxing Day Test on Tuesday (December 28) at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
In the ongoing Ashes series, Australia has defeated England by 9 wickets in the first Test in Brisbane, 275 runs in the day-night Test in Adelaide, and now recorded another thumping victory of an innings and 14 runs in the third Test to retain the Ashes urn in style in front of a home crowd at the MCG.
Australia took a 3-0 lead in the ongoing five-match Test series against England and Cummins said that it showed the strength of Australian cricket and warned that they were only just starting to rule Test cricket while hailing Scott Boland for his stunning performance on debut.
After taking only one wicket in the first innings, Boland returned with the incredible figures of 6/7 in just four overs to help Australia restrict England to 68 runs in the second innings at the MCG.
Cummins said after the game, “A great sign of the strength of Australian cricket. We were really confident Scotty would do a great job. Maybe not six for seven!”
The skipper further added, “Outside of the actual results, there have been so many other positives — a couple of debutants (Boland, Alex Carey, and Michael Neser), a strong squad. These three victories really feel like we're setting ourselves up for the next few years and on.”
Meanwhile, Cummins admitted that Australia's recent T20 World Cup 2021 victory had given the hosts the belief that “they are right up there with the best teams in the world”.
Read Also: Ashes 2021-22: Panesar compares James Anderson with Cristiano Ronaldo and Novak Djokovic
The pacer further noted, “We went into the series really confident. Losing Painey (Tim Paine) obviously wasn't ideal, but as soon as we knew that was going to be the case, we knew we had our jobs to do and a lot of really confident players around that.”
He signed off by saying, “I just feel like it's building, we have a great squad of 15 or 20 guys we're working from and I think we have got options for anywhere in the world.”
(With AFP Inputs)
