PAT COMES THE RECALL
Ranchi, March 14: Handed a Test recall faster than he had expected, Australian pacer Pat Cummins said it would feel like a second debut when he takes the field against India in the ongoing Test series.
Cummins stands a good chance of playing his first game in more than five years, having been drafted into the side as injured Mitchell Starc’s replacement.
“In some ways it does (feel like a second debut). To be honest, it’s not very fresh. It feels like so much has happened in those five or six years. But I think since that day this is easily the most prepared I have been for a Test match in terms of body, form and the length that I have been playing the last few months,” Cummins told the Australian media here today in his first interaction since arrival.
“So, in some ways it feels like my first game. But being part of the Aussie squad with ODIs and T20s, it is a pretty familiar surrounding.”
Cummins, who has not played a Test since making a dream debut against South Africa in 2011, said the Test recall has come faster than he thought.
“I knew I was on standby for the tour a couple of months ago but really I thought the bowlers weren’t going to bowl too many overs so hoped they weren’t going to be injured or anything like that. So yeah, I hadn’t really thought about coming over at all,” he said.
“I think for a couple of months, I knew I was going to be in with a chance; I had to sort out visas and everything like that a couple of months ago. So, I think it was always kind of part of a plan, along with playing a couple of Shield games.
“But I think over here they’re not great, bowler-friendly wickets for quicks, which actually means I won’t bowl too many overs,” said the pacer.
I knew I was on standby for the tour a couple of months ago but really I thought the bowlers weren’t going to bowl too many overs so hoped they weren’t going to be injured — PAT CUMMINS