‘It opens up your eyes’: Cricket star Pat Cummins on his mother’s death and how it changed him

As captain of the Australian cricket team, Pat Cummins is used to life in the sporting spotlight. But nothing prepared him for the loss of his true hero – his mother.

Whether it’s the smell of jasmine, the way the light sticks around past 5pm or the fact you can walk out the house without worrying about taking a coat, there are certain annual hallmarks that signify summer is on its way.

And after all this time, they still spark a sense of excitement for Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins.

“I still feel like a little kid who can’t wait for November to roll around,” Cummins tells Stellar. “It’s that unknown. You’re starting from nil-all in the series. Summer to me just means cricket, and now I can feel it’s coming around. I’m starting to get excited.”

Cummins is particularly eager for this upcoming test series against India because it comes off the back of a rare break from the game.

Cricket is a sport that chases summer, meaning that since he bowled his way onto the scene at 17, Cummins has spent the majority of his life on pitches (and in hotel rooms) overseas.

‘I find myself more deliberate in where I spend my time.’ Pat Cummins on how his life has changed as he prioritises his family. Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

But since he and his longtime partner, Becky, welcomed their son, Albie, in 2021; got married in 2022; and mourned the passing of his beloved mother, Maria, in early 2023, the way Cummins divvies up his time when he isn’t playing has taken on a new level of importance. He says “no” to more than he says “yes”.

In fact, for Cummins to participate in an exclusive photo shoot and interview with Stellar required deft and careful planning to fit both between training, meetings and non-negotiable family time.

“Anything that I do now, I have that second of pause and say, ‘This is going to take me away from my family. Is it something that I really want to do?’” he explains.

“And if it’s a ‘yes’, then you’re all in it. I find myself more deliberate in where I spend my time and effort and energy. You just have to as a parent. And I think that’s a good thing.”

This season also marks another milestone for Cummins with the release of his new children’s illustrated book series and his not-quite memoir, Tested.

True to not having a lot of spare time, the latter has been two years in the making. Also true to his nature of treading his own path, it isn’t a standard celebrity tell-all looking back at his childhood, career and life choices. When that idea was floated, Cummins came out against it. “We’ve been chatting a little bit around an autobiography and I said ‘absolutely no’ to that,” he admits. “I just didn’t have any interest.”

Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

So instead, Tested sees Cummins in conversation with 11 inspirational figures from a range of disciplines, including former prime minister Julia Gillard, fundraising runner Nedd Brockmann and even his wife.

Asked why he agreed to devote what limited time he can spare to sitting down for those interviews, Cummins explains, “If I wasn’t writing a book, I’d be kind of seeking out these things, anyway.”

Cummins, who has a degree in business, is already an avid reader. And while many people look to the world of sports for motivation or ideation, he goes the other way: “I think because I spend so much of my life around cricket teams and cricketers, I kind of look outside sport. It gives a little bit of space to re-energise, but also to think about problems within cricket differently.”

Listen to the latest episode of the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About, below:

Cummins has been a different kind of cricketing captain. A vocal advocate on climate change despite criticism that he’s “too woke” and should be apolitical, he founded the advocacy organisation Cricket For Climate in 2021.

The following year, in the middle of a media storm that centred around the departure of coach Justin Langer, he fronted the media and explained his feedback to Cricket Australia – that it should transition into a new direction – was about being both a custodian of cricket and standing up for his mates.

Pat Cummins in action. Picture: Getty Images

The Australian captain, right, after dismissing Rachin Ravindra of New Zealand during day three of the Second Testbetween New Zealand and Australia in New Zealand. Picture: Getty Images

With teammate Steve Smith, left, at Hagley Oval in Christchurch, New Zealand. Picture: Getty Images

When it comes to the Australian team, Cummins tells Stellar that each player should carve their own path away from the sport.

“We want to give people space, whether it’s just people spending more time with their families or upskilling in other areas,” he says. “Traditionally that might have been thought to get in the way of cricket. But we always think of it as the opposite.

“It makes them more well-rounded people and means when they’re playing cricket, they are even more energised and focused,” he adds. “I think it’s a better way to live, [rather] than being institutionalised in spending 100 per cent of your time and effort on this one thing. It takes pressure off. It’s as much of a performance enhancer as anything else, as well.”

One of the biggest impacts on his own leadership has been becoming a father; son Albie was just a newborn when he accepted the captaincy and the family will expand again next year, with Cummins and his wife revealing in August they have a baby on the way.

Family life and his own childhood informed Howzat Pat!, his children’s adventure series that tells the story of his school years and early love of cricket.

Pat Cummins and his wife Becky Boston at the 2023 Australian Cricket Awards held at Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Picture: Jonathan Ng

“Win, lose or draw you’re going to walk off the field and life outside of cricket isn’t going to change so much,” he says.

“It really does take the pressure off those big moments. You desperately want to perform well, but you’re not wasting energy worrying about the repercussions of something, or the negative, or the things that could go wrong.”

While Cummins has adjusted to life under one of the country’s brightest spotlights – it’s been said that the role of Australian cricket captain is second only to being the prime minister – he’s pragmatic about his family being in his job’s reflective glare.

“Of course it’s hard,” he says, “but I just don’t get as caught up in it. I’ve seen other people, however, how it really affects their life. We just try to be as normal as possible. Because I always think deep down, people don’t really care.”

In Tested, Cummins spoke to worldwide game changers – such as Indian entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala and British novelist and journalist Elizabeth Day – but perhaps his most moving passages include the lessons he learnt from his late mother Maria, a former teacher who was heavily involved in community projects and to whom he has dedicated his book.

Listen to the latest episode of the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About, below:

“My mum, she’s not necessarily someone [who was] in the public limelight, but she’s my hero. And it wasn’t because she was on TV every day or doing these worldwide, public things. It was the everyday things that she did over her lifetime.”

Featuring her, he says, was part of a strategy that was “deliberate in trying to celebrate the more local community stories as much as the world-changing ones”.

After Maria passed away last year from breast cancer, his perspective shifted even more. “Having more exposure to different experiences, you realise that people go through a lot,” Cummins explains.

“There are different pressures on different people at different times. So I think it’s given me a bit more understanding of what other people might be going through.

“That’s what experience does. It kind of opens up your eyes. For me, it gives clarity on what to focus on – and what to not waste energy on.”

Tested by Pat Cummins ($34.99, HarperCollins Australia) is out October 30. The first two books in the Howzat Pat! series ($12.99 each, HarperCollins) are out now.

Read the full interview with Pat Cummins in the latest issue of Stellar. For more from Stellar, click here.

Originally published as ‘It opens up your eyes’: Cricket star Pat Cummins on his mother’s death and how it changed him