Sunday marks a week since Pat Cummins and Co registered a glorious and heartbreaking – depending on which side of the grass you sit – win against India in the 2023 ODI World Cup final to win the title for an elusive sixth time.
However, the winning side is due their share of celebrations back home. While some of the team members including skipper Pat Cummins arrived in Australia earlier this week, many including the final’s player of the match, Travis Head are still in India – playing a five-match T20I series.
So is the World Cup trophy. Per The Sydney Morning Herald, Cricket Australia plans to bring the original piece of silverware in Sydney next week. However, that would mean the absence of Head, Glenn Maxwell, Steve Smith, Josh Inglis, and Adam Zampa from the celebrations. The planning for those only gets tougher for the CA with the players splitting in further directions come the home summer.
While the T20I series ends on December 3, Australia will embark on their home summer starting December 14 with a three-match Test series against Pakistan. There are plans lined up for a public celebration ahead of the first Test match in Perth but the Australian daily suggests that the likes of Inglis, Maxwell and Zampa are likely to be unavailable for the same owing to their Big Bash League committments.
“A few of the guys are still celebrating over in Vizag,” Alex Carey had said on his arrival back home in Adelaide. “I was on the plane with Mitch Marsh to Melbourne and I think everyone probably wanted a few more days together.
“We’ve all split off our own different ways, there’s T20s coming up, some guys are on aeroplanes at the moment getting home as well. I think once we all settle back down and catch up again in Perth or wherever it is, it’ll be nice to talk about it and reflect on it a little bit more. It’s probably pretty odd scheduling now that you look at it, to win a World Cup and a few days later you’re playing again, but the guys over there no doubt will perform really strongly. I think they’ll play pretty fearless cricket,” Carey added.
Australia’s World Cup winning teams in the past haven’t faced as grueling a cricket calendar dilemma. The Steve Waugh-led winning side in 1999 had received a ticker-tape parade swiftly after their arrival in Sydney. After the home triumph in 2015, the celebrations had moved to the Federation Square in Melbourne. Even in 2003, more than 5,000 plunged to the streets of Perth to welcome Ricky Ponting and Co despite the break being a short one, with most members of the squad leaving for a Test series in the West Indies in less than a week’s time.
The then Australian coach John Buchanan’s words on a quick turnaround from a rigorous two-month long campaign in South Africa ring loud and clear, “A lot of guys have been on the road for a long time, I think the Perth guys, we haven’t been home since December, mid-December when we played here. We’ll enjoy the three of four days home and then get the mind back into Test cricket again and going to the West Indies. The bottom line to all that is that’s the essence of this team and these players, they’re able to confront whatever the situation and perform exceptionally well.” The Aussie way, perhaps.
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