Pat Cummins, the pace ace who has always been a leader through his actions

The moment Patrick James Cummins, Australia’s future Test captain, grabbed the ball and charged in on Test debut at Johannesburg’s Wanderers Stadium, South African speed demon Morne Morkel noticed something about the 18-year-old that made him shuffle forward in his seat.

The future Test captain’s body language at the “bullring”, a notoriously tough place for touring teams, was striking.

“He was a different class,” Morkel tells the Herald, 10 years on from Cummins’ first Test outing in 2011. “There was a lot of word on the street about him.

“Body language … that’s something you need. [It’s] 90 per cent of international cricket. The way he went about things that day was a clear sign that he was a special player.”

As a cricketer who made a career of striking fear into opponents, watching a tearaway quick from Australia do the same to his own teammates “wasn’t nice”.

South Africa’s top order in that match may have been one of their greatest ever. Graeme Smith opened the batting, Hashim Amla at first drop, Jacques Kallis and AB de Villiers in the middle order.

Pat Cummins (second from right) on debut in 2011 after bowling Morne Morkel. Credit: Reuters

Morkel reveals how much Cummins rattled South Africa’s top order, en route to second innings figures of 6-79, before hitting a boundary for the match-winning runs.

“[I was] watching him running in and bowling really fast and really scaring our top order,” Morkel says. “A lot of the boys walked back and said, ‘who is this guy’? The South African crowds didn’t seem to bother him too much. We spoke to him afterwards and he was a guy who was switched on and destined for great things.”

Overawed? No, this was a kid with a big future, whose ability to bowl consistently at 145km/h, until his young body gave way, at least showed people he belonged before a long injury lay-off.

A leader by example.

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Six years on, Cummins is home, in a cricketing sense.

He’s playing for Penrith at Howell Oval, a stone’s throw from where the Panthers, his childhood rugby league team, play their home games.

Hundreds of onlookers are glued to the cricket. It’s the last over of the 2017 first grade limited-overs final.

Hawkesbury need five runs. Penrith need one wicket.

Already a star on the world stage, Cummins, who has just dismissed three of Hawkesbury’s best batters, doesn’t have to be here. But he is. And he’s nervous.

“In big stadiums there’s lots of people and you don’t really notice it,” Cummins told local reporters after the match. “But here it’s all your teammates [watching] and you know how much it means to everyone. It’s nerve-wracking.”

Not since 2001-02 has Penrith won any kind of silverware and Cummins, the local hero, has the ball in hand. Within minutes, thanks to Cummins’ crafty skills, Penrith are back in the game.

One ball. Three to win. Two to tie.

Good luck scripting a better finale.

A crescendo of claps reverberates around the oval as Cummins charges in to bowl.

It’s squeezed out to deep point and the batters comes back for two. The throw isn’t great – a half-volley – but Cummins’ older brother and wicketkeeper Tim scoops it up, takes the bails, and Penrith win by one run.

Players from every grade sprint onto the field to soak up a moment with one of their own, an international star who will never forget where he’s from.

A Penrith junior, who cut his teeth in Green Shield – Sydney’s under-16 competition – before working up from fourth to first grade, Cummins is a beacon of hope for cricketers in the west.

He’s also a generous one at that, as club president Paul Goldsmith explains.

“The boys ran out of alcohol and drank the fridge dry that night of the final,” Goldsmith said. “Pat handed over his credit card to probably the only sober person there, who bought quite a few hundred dollars [of alcohol] courtesy of Pat and probably some of his IPL money.

“In the sheds afterwards, Pat was as happy as anyone. He really cares about this club. Everyone ran onto the field and that showed how much it meant.

“He’s selfless and a Penrith boy at heart. It makes it real. It makes kids’ dreams all that achievable. They can duck into our pavilion and see Pat’s picture on the wall as a 15-year-old skinny little kid playing Green Shield.”

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Penrith players will tell stories about Cummins to their grandchildren.

Like the day as a 13-year-old, an opposition player’s mother asked Cummins to stop bowling so fast because he kept hitting her son. Or at 14, when a bail supposedly sailed over the fence after the youngster clean bowled someone.

Young gun: Pat Cummins bowls for Penrith’s under-10s rep team.

“That gives a bit of an insight that he was a bit of a child prodigy when it comes to fast bowling,” Goldsmith says.

A little known fact is that Cummins was dropped from the state’s under-15s Emerging Blues squad. Out of the all-important “system”, Cummins made the most of a growth spurt before really bursting onto the scene, particularly when given the chance to bowl at Australian Test captain Ricky Ponting in a net session.

However, Cummins really set tongues wagging for NSW at an under-17s tournament in Adelaide.

It was here Cummins helped NSW win a Big Bash curtain raiser against South Australia in a super over.

A 17-year-old Pat Cummins in February 2011. Credit: Simon Alekna

Cummins’ pace was something to behold, at times bowling with his first slip standing outside the 30-metre circle. Queensland opening batter Ben McDermott, son of Australian great Craig McDermott who played a handful of white-ball, painted a picture of nullifying Cummins.

“Facing him was proper scary,” McDermott wrote in an Athletes Voice column. “Not only was he seriously fast, he was swinging them both ways and sending down the occasional bouncer. I could barely see the ball.”

A year later, Cummins was captained by a future Australian teammate in Adam Zampa in the NSW under-19s team that featured childhood best mate Jordan Silk, as well as Sean Abbott and Gurinder Sandhu.

“A few weeks later though he was playing the Big Bash and doing well and bowling rockets,” Zampa says. “He’s a great fella, an absolute legend and a great leader.

“Being around him in the Australian team for the last couple of years in particular he’s just been a natural leader. He’s always in the players’ corners.

“The thing about him is he rarely shows any emotion other than happiness or calmness on the field. He’s never angry. I think he could be a really good influence on a lot of guys.”

Before a handful of NSW one-day matches this year, Cummins’ only captaincy experience was in seven Green Shield matches for Penrith in 2009, where he topped the team’s runs and wickets lists and made 136 not out against Mosman batting at No.5.

Pat Cummins in action for Penrith in first grade. Credit: Cricket NSW

The beauty about Cummins is that cricket was second-fiddle to his study and friends. He was very good, but never at Winx-odds to play Test cricket, as his under-17s NSW captain Kurtis Patterson explained this week.

“I never probably pictured him captaining the Test team,” Patterson said. “I probably didn’t pick him being as good as he is but he’s No.1 in the world and for a reason.”

Blues teammate and former housemate Harry Conway has also spent many days chewing the fat with Cummins about all things cricket.

“He’ll be unfazed as captain by the tough periods of Test cricket,” Conway says. “He’s such an optimistic player. That’s largely centred around how good he is personally.”

It is plausible no one has said a bad word about Cummins in any walk of life. For an incoming Test captain, tasked with winning the hearts and minds of a country, that’s a great starting point.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, he will take the time to find out your background and make an effort to connect people in a team environment,” Morkel says. “He’s very selfless and about the team. That’s the qualities in humans we all like.

“He ticks all the boxes and can inspire the team to follow him.”