Cricket - Ashes - Fifth Test - England v Australia - The Oval, London, Britain - July 27, 2023 Australia's Pat Cummins ahead of the start of the fifth test Action Images via Reuters/Andrew Boyers/ File Photo
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Criticised for waiting to unleash his bowlers at India, Australia captain Pat Cummins was ultimately rewarded as they engineered one of the best wins of his career on a tepid Melbourne Cricket Ground pitch on day five.
Australia took seven wickets after tea on Monday to claim an astonishing 184-run win in the fourth test in front of a huge crowd and forge a 2-1 series lead with the final match in Sydney to come.
Cummins defied former players, pundits and plenty of fans who had wanted him to declare Australia's second innings closed on day four, thereby allowing his bowlers to hunt quick wickets after tea.
Instead, tailenders Nathan Lyon and Scott Boland marched out to bat early on Monday and raised India's victory target to a record 340 runs.
It looked inevitable the match would peter out into a draw as India openers Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal held onto their wickets through the first hour.
But Cummins had other ideas, producing a two-wicket burst to remove opposing skipper Rohit for nine and KL Rahul for a duck, before Mitchell Starc dismissed Virat Kohli for five.
Jaiswal and Rishabh Pant looked to have steered the tourists to safety by batting through the entire middle session but India crumbled after tea.
Cummins was named Player of the Match for taking six wickets and scoring 100 tail-end runs in front of the biggest aggregate crowd for a test match in Australia.
Little wonder he rated the match so highly among his wins.
"I'm just trying to work out where it sits, I reckon that's right at the top," he said.
"Edgbaston was pretty special and I reckon that's pretty much on par, that was amazing.
"When you take all that into account, it's probably the best test match I've been involved in, in terms of 80,000 in the first three days, don't know what the crowd was today, but it was huge."
Cummins said the decision to keep batting into the final day was based on the conditions.
"I thought the wicket was pretty good," he told reporters.
"I saw our tail bat reasonably comfortably on it. So I felt like we needed at least 300 on it.
"It wasn't playing too much tricks. You saw today it didn't really spin heaps, didn't play too many tricks.
"We got 90-odd overs, that gave us 12 overs or 11 overs with the new ball, potentially second new ball today, so I felt like there was enough time."
Australia now need only a draw in Sydney to reclaim the Border-Gavaskar trophy contested between the sides.
India have won the last four test series between the nations.
"I'm sure there'll be a lot of sitting around tonight and a couple of boys might have a beer, some others might not, (instead) have water and some protein shakes and an early night," he said.
"But we'll savour this for a couple of hours at least and then it'll be recovery for the next few days."
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
