Pace ace: Adam Collins on the rise of Pat Cummins
Adam Collins learns why new Sussex coach says if the Aussie quick can listen to his body he will beat injury problems
There was an element of the unknown when Pat Cummins returned to Test cricket after more than five years away in Ranchi this March. No one dared doubt his status as the most gifted quick of his generation. But having played so little long-form cricket to age 23, acquiring so many brutal injuries along the way, his call-up for India was laced with obvious risk.
We needn’t have worried. The New South Welshman was “absolutely amazing” on his return to the big time, according to Steve Smith, for the verve he was able to find from the lifeless track. A “superstar” in the eyes of coach Darren Lehmann. Fast forward to Australia’s second Asian tour of the year in Bangladesh, and such was the confidence in him that selectors opted to enter the must-win second Test with Cummins their only seamer. As the newly anointed attack leader, Cummins was a natural, and a major factor in their four-day victory.
Next was a cauldron of a different kind over the last fortnight: an Ashes series. Cummins’ first Tests on home soil, no less. Sure enough, his influence on it already has made him indispensable to the side in every available way. If setting out as you plan to go on, there was no better start on the opening day than his trapping of Joe Root with what he described as a “one in a hundred” inswinger.
Then at Adelaide, while Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc received plaudits for bowling out England on the final day, it was lost in the commentary that Cummins got that collapse in motion the night before with a searing full delivery to smash Dawid Malan’s stumps.
But Smith didn’t forget. “Even last night when things weren’t going our way he was only going at one and a bit an over, so he was still keeping the pressure on,” he said after the win. “He got the key wicket.”
For all of this success, concern about Cummins’ lumbar is never far away. When Smith decided against enforcing the follow-on, those who supported the decision pointed reflexively to a nightmare scenario where the wunderkind could acquire another injury through overuse.
Indeed, the fact that Chadd Sayers was brought into the squad for the Test was as much about having the option to rest Cummins as it was about the South Australian’s skills.
This entire narrative is more familiar to Jason Gillespie than most, fit for barely a third of the Tests Australia played for the four years after his debut. Does he worry for Cummins? “I don’t actually,” the new Sussex coach told
The Final Word podcast in Adelaide. “We hear a lot about workload management and things like this, I think there are times when it is probably going too far the sports science way. But you could argue and very strongly that sports science has got it absolutely spot on looking after these guys now because they have played two Tests and have bowled plenty of overs in each.”
Gillespie’s approach as a bowler was reaching a point where he accepted that playing sore was part of the deal, and not to fixate on it. “I have said for a number of years that once Pat just gets conditioned and works out the difference between soreness and injury is absolutely key,” he said. “You only learn that by actually bowling.”
In Gillespie’s case, he stopped getting his back scanned altogether in the period where he was prolific for Australia between 2000 and 2005. “I just didn’t want to know,” he joked. “It just lit up like a Christmas tree. So I thought I was just going to leave that to pass through to the keeper and keep playing.
“It sounds very simple, but it is about knowing your own body and what you can and can’t do. Getting the advice from sports science and the physios and sporting staff, but at the end of the day it is your career and you have to take that ownership of your body.”
Then there’s his batting. Spending years with the ball out of his hand in rehab meant that Cummins had ample time to chip away at his secondary craft. Clearly, that was time well spent. At the Gabba, the 120 balls he faced were just as important as the 42 runs accumulated, the perfect man to accompany Smith in his meditative, match-winning ton.
In the city of churches, it was much the same, except this time Shaun Marsh was the beneficiary of Cummins’ cool head at No.9 on the way to three figures. In response, Mitchell Starc was happy to tweet that the younger man is more than entitled to leapfrog him into the No.8 position. Gillespie agrees.
“Gee whizz, he has got a very good sound base with a strong defence but he has actually got some shots,” Gillespie said, a player who evolved from tail-ender to double-centurion the course of his international journey. “I didn’t have any shots. I had a tuck off the hip and a cover drive, that’s all I had. He can play. Lock him in for a couple of Test hundreds.”
As for a prospective elevation up the order, why stop at eight? “He could even potentially bat seven if Australia needed it and they needed to go that genuine five bowling options on a really flat wicket and they needed an extra bowling option,” Gillespie said.
Watching from the media box, Gillespie is content sitting back and enjoying the ride with Cummins and Co. “We are seeing something pretty special, aren’t we? We are very blessed to be watching three fast bowlers at just about the peak of their powers.
“The old fast bowler in me, I loved these first two Test matches just to watch these guys go. If you are a bit of a bowling tragic like myself, it’s very exciting to watch.”
For everyone else, too. Unless you’re English.
The old fast bowler in me has loved to watch these guys go. If you’re a bowling tragic like me it’s very exciting