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Pat Cummins has fired with bat and ball in his NSW captaincy debut, helping the Blues defeat Victoria by 59 runs in a one-day clash at North Sydney Oval.
Pat Cummins proved calculating and clinical while celebrating his NSW captaincy debut with a 59-run victory over Victoria at North Sydney Oval, where Steve Smith's superb one-day form continued.
Smith's knock of 127 lifted the Blues to a total of 9-318 on Monday, when they looked to be in major strife after crashing to 4-73 in 20 overs.
Cummins smacked a quick-fire 49, producing his highest score of the summer after being given a chance to lead NSW's one-day side.
The express paceman, Australia's vice-captain in all three formats, then showed few signs of unease while calling the shots in the field for the first time since under-16s.
Cummins, regarded by Cricket Australia as a leading candidate to replace Tim Paine as Test skipper, took the new ball and removed Sam Harper and Nic Maddinson in his fourth over.
The 27-year-old snared 3-38 from nine overs, successfully keeping the pressure up both directly and indirectly to roll the visitors for 259 in 46.1 overs.
"I was pretty relaxed. The thing I was most nervous about was stuffing up my overs, getting my maths wrong," Cummins said, having asked Smith to bowl for the first time this summer.
"My mum is a maths teacher, so I wouldn't have lived that one down if I got it wrong.
"It was good fun.
"I leaned on Steve Smith and Moey (Moises Henriques) a bit to help me.
"Sometimes I felt like I needed to give someone else a bowl and he (Henriques) was like 'no you should bowl' and vice versa."
Matt Short scored a run-a-ball 67, James Pattinson (54) clattered a couple of sixes off Nathan Lyon, and Marcus Harris (47) started promisingly but the target proved too much.
Smith smashed six sixes, the most he has hit in a one-day innings at any level, in his third limited-overs ton for NSW.
Smith's final white-ball knock before the Indian Premier League auction was also the superstar's first 50-over game since Australia's ODI series against India, during which he posted a pair of 62-ball tons.
"Not a tough day, but he did good in his first day," Smith said of Cummins.
Cummins lost the toss and would not have enjoyed the early dismissals of Matthew Gilkes, Daniel Hughes, Henriques and Kurtis Patterson.
Ollie Davies' entertaining 57 on debut, which included consecutive leg-side sixes off Xavier Crone, helped shift momentum.
Smith, as he has done on countless occasions and for numerous teams, steadied after being summoned to the middle in the second over.
The classy-right hander started cautiously then launched a flurry of late boundaries, including a booming six off Pattinson that sailed over the hill and out of the ground.
Smith celebrated his hundred in low-key fashion, shaking Cummins' hand, then went down swinging at Pattinson in the 49th over.
