No Test Wonders: Ben Cutting relives coming close to Test debut for Australia in 2011

More than a decade on from coming close to making his Test debut on his home ground, Ben Cutting reflects on the agonising near-miss in the latest of our No Test Wonders series.

Cutting became a white-ball star after giving up the longer format.

Late at night on the day of what would have been his Test debut, Ben Cutting finally got into bed, more than 1500 kilometres away from where he had started it.

It was December of 2011. The Australian side was in transition after the humiliation of a 3-1 home Ashes defeat the previous summer and the fallout of the ensuing Argus review.

With a host of players ruled out through injury, national selectors named four uncapped players for the first Test of the home summer against New Zealand at the Gabba: David Warner, Mitchell Starc, James Pattinson and local boy Cutting, who had catapulted into the selection mix on the back of strong domestic form for Queensland and had recently been picked to play for Australia A against the tourists.

Ben Cutting runs the drinks on day one at the Gabba in 2011.

With Peter Siddle the relatively experienced head in the squad, two of the three other seamers were set to receive a baggy green.

Cutting, though only 24, was the oldest of the trio. He would have been a popular choice at the Gabba, and there was a hometown groundswell pushing for him to get the nod.

“It was pretty amazing, particularly given it was a home Test. There was one Queenslander that was in and that was me in that squad,” Cutting recalls.

“Front and back pages of the paper, myself, various photos of mum and dad, all that sort of stuff. So it was sort of the elation and the high of being up and involved in all that.”

Cutting prepares to bowl for Australia A.

Cutting was the last man cut from the team to face New Zealand.

That was until match eve when new Australian coach Mickey Arthur and team manager Gavin Dovey called Cutting to Arthur’s hotel room to let the paceman know that he had missed the cut.

“They saw James Pattinson and I as being too (alike), and they were going to go with the left-armer in Starcy,” Cutting said.

Though obviously disappointed, Cutting was a heartbeat away from playing Test cricket. Given his age and the way Australia had churned through quicks in recent years, it still appeared a matter of when rather than if.

David Warner, Ben Cutting, Mitchell Starc and James Pattison after being called into the Aussie squad. Picture: Lisa Clarke

On day one, Cutting stood at his home ground with the coat of arms on his shirt as the national anthem rung around the Gabba. As was the custom at the time, he ran drinks for the first half of the day before being ushered off to play for the Bulls whose Sheffield Shield match in Melbourne was beginning the following day.

It all made sense in theory, allowing Cutting to keep playing competitive cricket rather than fulfil 12th man duties.

But it was not a smooth journey.

“Unfortunately, I was delayed for hours and hours on the tarmac, sitting around and then peak hour traffic accidents and shit weather in Melbourne at the other end, I think it was about 12 hours door to door. I rolled out the next morning. I was pretty stiff and sore. Three balls into my spell the next day, I ripped my side off the bone,” Cutting said.

History shows Cutting battled through for nine first innings overs at the MCG, picking up the wicket of Aaron Finch lbw for a duck.

Ben Cutting and Erin Holland.

Cutting says he was too often let down by his body.

Yet his injury was serious. It meant Cutting didn’t feature at all in what was the first season of the Big Bash League, and more pertinently he was out of the mix for the remaining five home Tests of the summer including a 4-0 romp against India.

“It was the ultimate high to the ultimate low,” Cutting said.

To add salt to the wound, when Cutting returned to domestic cricket he picked up a groin injury. He passed a fitness test on the morning of the Shield final against Tasmania but was still not selected for a match the Bulls would win by three wickets.

It never quite happened for Cutting. Though he played four one-dayers and four Twenty20 internationals for Australia across 2013 and 2014, the Test appearance that had been so close 13 years ago was destined never to eventuate.

“I might have got close probably a year or two later, but then again, fell out from injury out of the Shield squad. The messages from the selectors at that point in time were very mixed. At one point I was told I needed to bowl more, like James Pattinson, when the original reason they left me out of the team is because I bowled too similar to James Pattinson,” he said.

He took 3-45 in a one-day international against the West Indies at the SCG in February 2013, and yet Cutting doesn’t look back at that period with great fondness.

Ben Cutting celebrates a wicket against the West Indies in 2013.

“There was a lot happening behind the scenes, which meant I didn’t really enjoy the environment when I was around it. The way they were selecting teams was basically, you’re in for one, out for one,” he said.

Plagued subsequently by chronic fatigue syndrome, Cutting pulled the pin on first-class cricket, playing his last Shield match in 2017 to become a full-time white-ball weapon on the circuit.

Even now he is still squeezing the last juice from the orange, playing as a specialist batter in Nepal. He has endured debilitating back issues in recent years, bad enough that he needed spinal surgery.

Ben Cutting goes bang! @HeatBBL have been absolutely dominant tonight#BBL09pic.twitter.com/V1aaRKlDcM

— 7Cricket (@7Cricket) January 3, 2020

Though he has played for his country and had several Indian Premier League stints, Cutting laments that it could have been so much more.

“I’m probably extremely disappointed in that I didn’t reach the highs that I thought I probably could have,” Cutting said.

“A lot of that probably comes down to there’s probably a little bit of hatred towards my body, and it consistently let me down, even to this day, during those big moments which were really important ones and didn’t really matter what format happened consistently, I was always someone, particularly in the last 10 years, where I’d probably train too hard to make sure I was prepared and to the utmost.”

But he insists there are no regrets.

“Probably not, because I certainly haven’t died wondering to prepare myself, and I’m sure I was ready for anything that could be thrown at me,” Cutting said.

Originally published as No Test Wonders: Ben Cutting relives coming close to Test debut for Australia in 2011