Pat Cummins' side to approach AUS vs SA World Cup semifinal with a 'business as usual' mindset

Five-time champions Australia are in the semifinals of a cricket world cup yet again and their captain Pat Cummins believes the team will approach the clash against South Africa with a 'business as usual' mindset.

On being asked about his mindset before the semifinal, which will be Cummins' first as captain in an ODI World Cup, he said, 'I think there's a couple of different ways you can go about it. You can either build it up as the most important game of your life, or you can do business as usual, really. And 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.'

Cummins, who is captaining a team for the first time at a knock-out game, added the current Australian players are not in a position to draw much from the famous 1999 World Cup semifinal between the two sides.

'None of our players were playing. So yeah, you can't probably draw too many conclusions from that team. But it's part of Australian cricket folklore and history. So, you see the replays. But yeah, obviously none of us were playing in the game.'

Cummins also stressed that the recent results against South Africa would have no bearing on the semifinal match at Eden Gardens, where the pitch is expected to assist spin bowlers and faces the threat of bad weather.

'I don't think it counts for too much. You know, obviously you start from scratch every time you play. They're a team we've played quite a lot and know quite well. But as you said, this week it's probably going to be quite different to say the South African series that we just played against them a couple of months ago. So, I think what helps us is we've got a lot of guys that have been in this situation before that have won one day World Cup, T20 World Cup, various other tournaments in big moments. So, I think that really helps. You can draw on that in the middle of the contest. In terms of the wicket, it does look like it's probably going to spin a bit more than some of the other wickets. Which again, is the same for both teams. It might just be a slightly different pace game, but I think it's still pretty evenly matched.'