AHMEDABAD: After two games at the World Cup, Australia's campaign resembled a door inside the bowels of the Narendra Modi Stadium. It just exists without serving any purpose. It literally separates two unwalled spaces.
Like that door, the five-time champions had too many missing parts. Bowlers who already had lots of mileage in their legs, one opener on a farewell tour of the country, another with a fractured hand, a reactive middle-order, the regular keeper dropped, the team's only frontline spinner not picking up wickets... this wasn't the Australia India had watched on in awe in previous World Cups.
Winless, pointless and bottom of the table, Pat Cummins' side had seemingly ground to a halt. That trend was set to continue after the first 20 overs of their third game. Sri Lanka had made a rollicking start. Seven-and-a-bit games later, the joke, as always, is on the ones who doubted the green and gold. Played eight. Won eight. On Sunday, they will feature in their eighth World Cup final.
Unlike some of their previous iterations, this Australian side hasn't been a battering ram. Instead, Cummins & Co have had to rely on catharsis and other intangibles to lift them on multiple occasions. Even before Glenn Maxwell, whose body twitched and turned before almost giving up on him against Afghanistan, Zampa put his body on the line.
In a very revealing interview with The Grade Cricketer podcast after the Sri Lanka game, he spoke about it. "Stoin (Marcus Stoinis) was amazing," he had said. "He saw I was in pain and with a bit of niggle himself, he said, 'Mate, let's just give it a shot, let's just go for it. Who cares if we end up with worse injuries? If we don't try, we are going home as losers anyway, so let's go. That moment was a turning point for me, and I thought, 'yeah, let's just go for it.'"
Faced with a fight, flight or freeze response, Australia embraced the fight. Going home didn't faze them in the least bit but they wanted to go home in an acceptable manner. Nobody has embraced this more than Zampa. If he had back spasms during the Sri Lanka game, he was ill before the Pakistan game. He's also had numerous other issues during the course of the event. Glutes. Neck. Back. Fever. Name a part of the body and the wrist-spinner has probably felt it twang at some point or the other. "Lazarus (Zampa's nickname) has been awesome," Cummins told the host broadcaster after the Pakistan game (Zampa finished with figures of 4/53). "He's been in bed for the last week or two. He was fantastic, and he just showed his class. He's a real wicket-taker in the middle."
Zampa, of course, isn't the only one who has adopted this attitude of 'let's just give it a go and see what happens'. Maxwell, fresh from concussing his head, went medieval on Afghanistan while playing on one good leg. David Warner, a white-ball great who still doesn't know what his future holds after this event, has had an Indian summer that will be talked about for years to come. Travis Head, first competitive game back after fracturing his hand, needed no sighters against Trent Boult and the New Zealand attack. Marnus Labuschagne continues to survive and thrive despite the external noise. Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Cummins have bowled 3,510 balls in Tests alone in 2023. In terms of this metric alone, no other attack even exists in the same postcode (for comparison, India's three lead pacers have bowled 1,421 Test deliveries in 2023).
At some level, you don't even know what to make of this Australian side. They do not evoke awe. They are not Ponting's all-conquering machines. However, there is durability and adaptability. At least eight of the 11 players who were in the final of the 2021 T20 World Cup will play in the final on Sunday (there is an argument to be made that they rocked up to the desert and won the event when they themselves didn't believe that was possible). At least six of the 11 who were in the WTC final earlier this year will play in the final on Sunday (there is an argument to be made that there was perhaps a temptation to treat that final as a sort of preparation for the Ashes). Just like that, a slightly underwhelming unit (relative to previous outfits) is 100 overs away from winning three ICC titles within two years.
+Suffice it to say that if India are virgins, Australia have way too much experience. Before their semifinal against South Africa, Cummins spoke about how they plan to channelise this experience of winning. "You can either build it up as the most important game of your life, or you can be business as usual," he had said. "I think with experience, I think just keeping it pretty chilled and business as usual for our group seems to be the way to go. So, you draw back on those past wins but you also just draw back on the last few weeks and know that us at our best is good enough. So, you don't need to try and push it too hard. But I think there's a quiet confidence and I think our team plays our best when we've got that."
On Sunday, it will be business as usual for Cummins and his band.
