Pat Cummins ebbed and flowed after the 176-run defeat against the South Africa National Cricket Team in Cape Town. The Australia National Cricket Team went for a win, but their batters were outclassed by Simon Harmer and Kagiso Rabada on Day 5 of the final match of the three-match Test series in South Africa.

The heavy defeat against South Africa removed the Pat Cummins-led side from the No.1 spot of the ICC men's Test team rankings. Since the final of the previous edition of the World Test Championship (WTC), again and again, the Aussies have endured repeated bumps on their road.

Multiple questions around Australia's Test team

From choosing bowling first under a shiny, blue sky to leaving the ground as the defeated side, the Australian cricket team needs to address multiple aspects of their recent performance. In the recent past, in Durbad, they sustained a heavy defeat against the Bangladesh cricket team as well.

By defeating South Africa, the former world champions could have made a statement. After the match, they are left with only a few unsolved puzzles. In the presence of batters like Travis Head, Matt Renshaw, Josh Inglis, Cameron Green, and the other prominent batters, why did they fail to get 288 runs in their first innings? The star-studded Baggy Green brigade got only 111 in their second innings.

Australia were in leading position after the first innings

Cummins mentioned after the match that they were in a commanding position after taking ten wickets in the first innings. But lack of runs from the batters might have left the team behind.

"I mean, really ebb and flow, didn't it? After a pretty hot start, I think we did brilliantly to take the ten wickets on day one. Gave ourselves a chance. Then, probably fell a little bit behind with the bat, but then a great partnership got us well ahead. And then, ending day three 4 for 40 effectively. In a great position. But really tough workout there yesterday. I thought a couple of the partnerships they put on made chasing today a pretty tough task," Pat Cummins stated.

Pat Cummins was not happy with their batters

Soon after the beginning of the final day of the match, Australia started to lose wickets at regular intervals. Seven batters of their batting line-up were dismissed without scoring a single run. With multiple flop shows, a defeat against the WTC defending champions was almost confirmed even before losing the tenth batter.

"I think the trend of this game was once you got yourself in, there were runs to be scored there,e and you could face lots of balls. Probably, within the first hour really, the game was away from us. So just didn't really give ourselves a chance," Pat Cummins continued.

The leader of the Australian cricket team, however, did not want to put blame on any of his teammates. Expressing trust in their teammates, Pat Cummins expressed that they will have a couple of weeks to recover before their next Test series.

"I think we're a really good side. You know, tough opponents away from home. It's always really difficult. Now, we came here very hopeful and thought we were good enough to win, but we weren't. So, we'll have a couple of weeks to digest it," he added.