‘Gentlemen, we can rebuild him’: How Pat Cummins has come back bigger, stronger and faster
PAT Cummins was so fragile he barely played a game for six years after his Test debut. Now he has become the workhorse of the Australian attack.
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PAT Cummins is cricket’s Six Million Dollar Man. His young body torn to pieces by the rigours of fast bowling, the game’s greatest minds set about rebuilding him so that, like Colonel Steve Austin in the television program, he came back bigger, stronger and faster than before.
The strapping 24-year-old turned the first day of the Cape Town match in Australia’s favour with a brilliant spell of reverse bowling, running in hard and bowling fast when the shadows were long and limbs had every right to be weary.
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The kid so fragile he barely played a game for six years after his Test debut has become the workhorse of the Australian attack. A testament to the people and program behind his rehabilitation.
Cummins broad shoulders have appeared in more matches and bowled more overs in the past 12 months than cartel co-workers Mitchell Star and Josh Hazlewood.
In the 1970s television show no money or expense is spared in getting the astronaut back into business. It was the same story for the broken bowler.
For a while Cummins was known as Australia’s highest paid student. He pulled good money on a Cricket Australia contract but rarely sent down a delivery. His life was a round of rehab and strengthening and in the quiet moments he earned himself a business degree.
His girlfriend reveals recently that he retreats to a corner between tour and immerses himself in books and cannot be disturbed. He admits he’s a bit of a “nerd”. He’s read a bit of Richard Dawkins, but doesn’t mind the page turning best seller James Patterson either. He is constantly on his electronic reader, highlighting quotes, copying them into a diary.
He has had plenty of time to read, but not any more.
In the 2017-18 reality show (March to March) Cummins has appeared in 13 consecutive Test matches, Starc six and Hazlewood nine.
In that time he has sent down 2250 deliveries in Test matches alone, 1000 more than Starc, 250 more than Hazlewood.
Pat Cummins was for a long time a mirage. A verdant outlier glimpsed once seven years ago in a heroic win at Johannesburg and unattainable since. A promise on the horizon.
He was supposed to be right for the Ashes, but when Mitchell Starc broke down in India they rushed him back early, flying him in from Australia on the evidence of just one Shield game, slingshotting him past Jackson Bird who was in the squad
It was hard slog on dead Indian tracks, but he proved more than ready and hasn’t looked back since
“This is my 12th straight (Test), I think the Indian tour happened really quickly and as a bowler you just run in and bowl over there, there isn’t much else to do other than try to bowl fast and bowl bouncers,” he said.
Three Tests later the same selectors who had nervously written his name onto the team list in India named Cummins as the only frontline seamer on a spinner’s paradise in Bangladesh.
“Now, stringing lots of Tests together, it’s more about trying to get up for each Test and working out plans, my body at the moment I don’t have to think about anywhere as much as I used to.
“I just go out there and try and bowl as fast as I can in each spell. A four Test match series at the back of a five Test match series is hard work but I just have to concentrate on staying fresh and bowling well rather than any injuries.”
The bowler had sent down 13 overs when Smith turned to him on the first day in Cape Town. AB de Villiers and Dean Elgar, the pretty and the gritty, had taken the score to 2-220 and it was starting to look like a run out was the only hope of dismissing them.
Cummins summoned all his strength to give one last hard effort for the day. In 38 searing deliveries he had changed the day. He took 4-7, he removed de Villiers, Faf du Plessis, Temba Bavuma and Quinton de Kock. AB had unlocked the door, Cummins proceeded to kick it down.
His skipper kept asking for another effort. He sent down eight overs, the teams’s medical and fitness staff watching anxiously.
“For me it’s probably more of a rhythm thing,” he explained. “I felt really fresh and energised this morning but some days it just doesn’t feel like it’s coming out as well.
“The more you bowl the better you tend to bowl. As bowlers, (we) quite like long spells because it normally means you’re into a rhythm. I was probably lucky, it cooled down a bit towards the end of the day, it was quite hot through the first two sessions. It wasn’t too much of an issue getting through a spell.”
“He (Smith) just kept asking if I was good for another one and as I said, I was probably lucky it was cooler than it had been. I felt like I had a bit of a wind behind me and felt really good. Wickets always make the legs feel a little bit fresher. I think by my last over I was ready to hand it over because it felt like they were coming out pretty slowly.”