Cummins coy on selection as Australia face tough semi-final call
The five-time World Cup champions have won seven straight matches at this year's tournament and have to find a way of including Glenn Maxwell in their final XI that will take on the Proteas after the star all-rounder missed their final group match against Bangladesh.
Fellow all-rounder Marcus Stoinis is among the players likely to miss out due to Maxwell's inclusion, while the Aussies may favour his overs with the ball and opt to omit a specialist batter like Marnus Labuschagne.
While Cummins suggested he had more than likely made his mind up about the XI that will tackle South Africa, the Australia skipper said he was still tossing up whether to include an extra all-rounder or an additional batter in his final side.
"Stoin (Marcus Stoinis) at No.7 gives you valuable overs, but then also is a really aggressive finisher to the innings so you're weighing that up against you know maybe a middle order batter if you think the bowling might not come into it as much and maybe the runs are to be had through the middle overs rather than blasting out at the end,” Cummins mused on Wednesday.
"They are things we've got to weigh up. I don't think there's a wrong or right answer. We've got a class squad of people here that feel like we can step in at any time so yeah, we'll work through that."
South Africa thrashed Australia by 134 runs when they met during the group stage of the World Cup in Lucknow, but Cummins believes not much can be taken from that result as his team are playing with much more confidence now than what they were earlier in the tournament.
The Aussies have since found their mojo to register seven straight victories prior to Thursday's cut-throat semi-final and Cummins thinks his side are well placed to defeat the Proteas and go on and claim a sixth World Cup title.
"I think we've come a long way since the start of the tournament," Cummins said.
"The first two games were two tough teams to come up against. And with the bowling, I think we've just got better and better in all phases. So yeah, it feels like we're really well placed.
"We've obviously played a lot of cricket over the last month and it just feels like everyone knows their role and it's starting to click."
Meanwhile, Cummins said he had no issues with any of the playing surfaces his team have encountered during the group stages of the event.
A report earlier on Wednesday raised some concerns about the pitch being used in Mumbai for India's semi-final against New Zealand, but Cummins said he hadn't noticed anything wrong with the playing surfaces used at the tournament.
"Yeah, I saw that (report)," Cummins said.
"You know obviously ICC have an independent pitch curator who manages that - so I'm sure they're all over making sure it's fair for both teams.
"So far at this tournament (the pitches) that we've played on, I haven't seen any issues."
