Massive workload won’t burst Cummins’ bubble
AS the rest of the world starts to wilt, turbocharged Pat Cummins says he is still bursting with energy inside cricket’s biosecurity bubble.
Australia will carry an unchanged attack through the Border-Gavaskar series with coach Justin Langer wanting his fast bowlers to soldier on in
Brisbane in the manner of Rick McCosker, Steve Waugh and Allan Border.
Cummins, 27, is ready to power through the fourth Test and on to South Africa for another three-Test series and then to the Indian Premier League.
While that would probably see the world’s best bowler spend the majority of February through to May trapped inside bubbles, the workhorse has not suffered severe mental or physical fatigue so far this summer.
“I feel really lucky I got that seven or eight days at home (during the white-ball series in December) to reset ahead of the Test matches,” Cummins said.
“So I feel in a good place. After the Gabba Test match hopefully we’ll have another couple of weeks (off) before we go overseas for a couple of different trips.”
Much to Langer’s frustration, Australia is expected to play a T20 series in New Zealand and a Test series in South Africa simultaneously as cricket boards look to stimulate each other’s finances after the pandemic.
Some players are likely to then skip the lucrative IPL as fears rise bubble life cannot be sustained much longer. But Cummins all but guaranteed he would be ready to fire.
“Three Test matches over in South Africa is still the plan, then most likely after that there’s an IPL somewhere,” Cummins said. “We’ll have to wait until we get a bit closer to see what that (IPL) looks like.
“Whether you have to quarantine on either side, whether it’s a hard lockdown or your family can come or whatever it is. But at this stage I’m really keen to get over there.”