Cummins dreams of captaincy

PAT Cummins’s stint as vicecaptain has ignited a dream of one day succeeding Tim Paine as Australia’s Test captain.

And he’s got strong backing with former skipper Michael Clarke who yesterday declared Cummins has the “cricket smarts” to take the top job.

Cummins, 26, was appointed vice-captain with Travis Head in January and looms as a strong option to replace Paine once the 34-year-old Tasmania finishes in the job.

“Recently being vice-captain feeling like I’ve played a bit more cricket and as one of the more experienced guys on the team, it is something that has definitely come on the radar and something I have thought about a little bit more,” Cummins said.

“We will see. The good thing at the moment is we’ve got Tim Paine doing a great job, hopefully he will play for a lot longer.

“We’ve also got about four or five other guys around the side who have either captained Australia or their state so it is in good hands so we will see what happens.”

Asked what he would say if offered the captaincy, the fast bowler said it would be too big an honour to turn down.

“I don’t think you could say no to a job like that,” Cummins said. “What an honour it would be. It would be pretty clear that if it was to come up, I wouldn’t be the finished product straight away and I’d need some good people around. Whether it is me or someone else, anyone starting out doesn’t know the full job until you are thrown into the deep end a bit.”

Richie Benaud was the last frontline bowler to be a longterm captain.

Cummins admits he wouldn’t have been ready to take on the job until now.

“I definitely feel better equipped if it came up now than I would have a couple of years ago.”