DIGITAL ISSUE
The quiet confidence of Pat Cummins
Ahead of the Ashes, the Aussie skipper is battling injury and questions about his fitness. He knows drama lies ahead. He also knows he and his team are equipped to deal with it
BY BEN JHOTY
IT’S DIFFICULT TO ruffle Pat Cummins’ feathers, try as you might. Having been met with a series of calm, confident responses to my questions about this summer’s Ashes, I decide to pose a question about climate change, enquiring whether Cummins thinks the move towards more night Test matches and the electricity bill that might come with them, is a good thing for the planet.
Australia’s famously statesman-like, environmentally conscious captain doesn’t bat an eyelid. “It is a lot of electricity,” agrees Cummins, who’s chatting to Men’s Health at the foot of the Matthew Hayden stand at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane. “But I think the reality is in some places it’s getting hotter and hotter during the day. In the IPL, we obviously play at night. So, I think as a way to have cricket all year round, more and more places are putting on night games.”
You might say Cummins has met my enquiry with the straightest of bats. It’s a diplomatic, measured response from a player whose willingness to speak out on issues he feels strongly about has seen him been both lauded and vilified by sections of the media. Not that any of that bothers him. He’s having too much fun leading the Australian cricket team in what has become one of its most successful eras.
In case you missed it, under Cummins the team has won a World Test Championship, a ODI World Cup, the 2023 Ashes, a home series against India and boasts a winning percentage of 62 per cent. In that time, the team once known for its hard-nosed, aggressive brand of cricket, has managed to maintain its competitive fire without tripping over arbitrary imaginary lines, often drawn by sideline pundits.
I ask Cummins where he finds motivation, having already experienced so much success. In hindsight, it’s a silly question to ask a competitive athlete – kind of like asking a kid if they want more ice-cream – but Cummins indulges me anyway.
“No two challenges are the same,” he points out. “So although we’ve had success, you feel like you’re starting a series and you want to win that series. I don’t look too far ahead. It’s about trying to win everything that’s in front of you, in that moment. We’re all super competitive, so we just want to keep winning. I just love playing alongside these blokes and you basically want to win most games you play and have a good time while you’re doing it.”
As you might have heard, Cummins’ back has been playing up of late, already knocking him out of the first Test in Perth on November 21, and possibly for future games in the series. He’s had scans, which picked up some lower back lumbar stress. It’s a worrying sign for a fast bowler, particularly one who lost a couple of years due to back ailments at the beginning of his career. But if Cummins is worried, he’s not showing it.
“If you keep bowling it gets worse,” he says of the injury. “We got it relatively early, but the only way to make it better is to give it time.”
If Cummins is cleared to play in the series, he will surely have to monitor his workload, no easy task for a captain whose ability to bring himself on to break partnerships just when the team needs it, has become something of a calling card.
“As captain, I think you want to be the guy that wins the game and leads from the front at times,” Cummins acknowledges. “I’ve relished that my whole career, even before I was captain. It’s when it gets tough. I love those moments. The competitor in me comes out.”
Thankfully for Australia, the team boasts perhaps the most formidable bowling unit in world cricket in Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, Scott Boland and Cummins, along with the GOAT, Nathan Lyon, with his off-spinners. “I think our bowling has been fantastic over the last few years, particularly over here in these conditions,” says Cummins, when I ask if he has any fears about being able to contain the Poms’ infamous Bazball tactics.
I put it to Cummins that the bowling unit’s strength means the wickets get shared around, much like the great West Indian bowlers of the ’80s. It’s perhaps a negative spin – it means the player’s individual stats are not as impressive as they would be if only one or two bowlers were collecting all the wickets. Typically, Cummins manages to see the positives. “Hopefully it means you can play most of the Tests a year rather than one bowler exhausting themself and missing a few Tests.”
Normally on a sunny day like this, you might find Cummins down at Bronte or Clovelly beaches near his home in Sydney. “I’d probably get up early with the kids,” he says. “They’re waking up too early at the moment. I’d have breakfast with them and then go to training, do some gym work or maybe see the physio and then have the afternoon with the kids, maybe go down the beach. We’d have an early dinner, put them to bed and try and watch something on TV with my wife.”
But it’s nearly summertime and that means it’s business time for Cummins and his men. Coming off the controversy of the 2023 Ashes series with all the earnest ‘spirit-of-the-game’ hand wringing that took place in the aftermath of the run-out of Jonny Bairstow, this summer promises to be box office.
“I think everyone knows it’s going to be big, but I think it’s going to be even bigger than what people are thinking,” says Cummins. “Ticket sales, the chatter among fans already seem to be building into one of the biggest summers ever.”
At some point during the summer, there will likely be controversy, an incident that in the absence of real news during the silly season, becomes the subject of heated, overcooked analysis. Let’s hope so, anyway. If it does happen, just don’t expect our cool, calm and always collected captain to fret too much about it.
“I think we know it’s going to come,” he says. “I think it’s important as a team that you remember what you stand for and just bring your own version of yourself. Everyone’s pretty experienced. We’ve all seen things before and I think as a team we’re pretty good at knowing what to worry about and what not to worry about. It’s going to be noisy – that’s part of the fun of an Ashes series. We’ll be fine.”
And you believe him. As always with Cummins, you feel like the Australian cricket team is in safe hands.
