Australian fast bowler Pat Cummins feels that he ‘enjoys’ playing cricket in India as he said, “playing my first Tests in six years in 2017 in Ranchi and Dharamsala restarted my Test cricket career and will always hold a special place”.

Although Australia lost the four-match Test series 1-2 against India, Cummins, who featured in the last two Tests, snapped up eight wickets at an economy of 3.14, second only to Josh Hazlewood’s nine wickets at 2.47 who played all the four matches. Talking to Sportstar about the same, Pat said, “I spent a lot of time in India in 2017. To have billion people, all cricket crazy following their teams, it is an amazing experience.”

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He further added, “But in somewhere like India, my slower ball usually spins a bit more than back in Australia and a bouncer is still a good option. To be honest, I think the biggest difference is the size of the outfields which are a lot smaller usually than back home.”

After completion of the ongoing four-match Test series against South Africa, now levelled 1-1 -Cummins will fly to India where he’ll represent Mumbai Indians for the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018. And he looking forward to playing for the three-time IPL champion, who acquired the pacer for a whopping ₹5.6 Crore and Cummins is excited to learn ‘how to bowl yorkers effectively’ from MI bowling coach Lasith Malinga. He said, “Obviously one of the great T20 bowlers who has set the benchmark for a long time. His thought process about bowling in the death overs.”

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Cummins also talked about his new team-mate and India’s newest death-over specialist , he said, “Bumrah has been such a consistent player for MI and now India in the past few years. A great wicket-taker up front and then a great mix of slower balls and fast yorkers at the death, I’m glad I don’t have to face him.”

Talking about his Test debut, when Pat was Man of the Match at the Wanderers, for his seven-wicket haul – believes he has come of age since. He said, “I’m a very different bowler than back then. Looking back at the footage I can’t believe how different my action and run up looked. I feel I am a lot more measured in the way I bowl now. By this I mean I feel I am a lot more accurate and control the swinging ball better which means going flat out every single spell isn’t necessarily my best and only option.”

However, in last 12 month, Cummins has been successful in remaining injury free and is bowling with admirable pace – his 23 wickets from five Tests in Australia’s successful Ashes campaign being the silver lining. He said, “About 90 percent of the time has been spent on a tour which is great. It means the main purpose is recovering after a game and finding that balance between feeling fresh and being fully prepared for the next game.”

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He further added, “We all do this in different ways but for bowlers a lot of it is just spending time off our feet, doing ice baths and pool sessions and then fit in some gym sessions to try and maintain strength.”

Pat Cummins concluded by stating that in today’s era most teams are winning matches mostly because of of good bowling attacks, he said, “I think the trend in the past few years is that the most successful teams are the best bowling sides. Every team has a few batsmen that can take the game away from the other side and make a big score, but the bowlers are the ones that win those 50-50 games and can turn a small target into a big one. As a bowler, I love seeing the emphasis on aggressive bowling up front and the defensive death bowling at the end.”