Epic quest to find cricket’s god child

Pace bowler Pat Cummins appears to be the chosen one of Australian cricket

The search for the last Dalai Lama is painstaking and protracted. High priests of the Tibetan religion search mountains and valleys, crossing glacial rivers and visiting remote villages in places where human life clings precariously.

The child they are looking for must pass a number of tests to prove they are the god child incarnate, without sin, worthy of the position …

The search for Australian Test captain is a shaping as a similarly epic quest.

Where is the needle in the haystack? The blessed one? Where in the bin fire of modern existence lies a person of such impeccable character they are worthy to toss the coin and set the field in the game’s great contests.

The quest to find a suitable candidate is somewhat eased by the proximity of Pat Cummins, a man whose character was on display in a recent Weekend Australian Magazine profile.

“There’s genuinely no dirt on the bloke, it is incredible,” his state teammate and former house mate Harry Conway said. “Phenomenal. It is 100 per cent authenticity all the time, I’ve never seen him in a bad mood, I’ve never seen him blow up at anyone, I’ve never seen him unhappy. It is bizarre. The humility – given he is the number one fast bowler in the world – is incredible.”

Admission to the office is a double edged sword. With the prestige comes the weight of constant scrutiny of performance at the physical and mental tasks the game assigns. Beyond that, there are the demands placed on your character.

High office is a lonely place.

The past two captains have ended up crying, apologising and isolated.

Nothing symbolises better the lack of support than the absence of the familiar wall of corporate logos that has formed the backdrop to almost every exchange they’d had up to this point.

The cliche that cricket is a team game played by individuals is not adequate to explain the self-interest that serves as default mode for many on and off the field.

It served cricket’s interests to have Tim Paine as captain. A steady, likeable, mature character with the intelligence to assist the brand in its rehabilitation. Together he and Justin Langer fronted the rehabilitation campaign following the banning of former captain and vice-captain, Steve Smith and David Warner.

It served cricket’s interests to accept he was not without sin when that came to light.

If the next captain, whether that is Smith revisited or Cummins repurposed, they will be all too aware of the weight the crown carries, but it became a heavier burden on the weekend when acting Cricket Australia chair Richard Freudenstein indicated the next candidate would be heavily scrutinised before appointment.

The same Freudenstein who admitted being aware for two years of the situation that triggered Paine’s downfall late last week.

Australian Cricketers Association chief executive Todd Greenberg, a former NRL boss, has had a confronting introduction to cricket’s ability to eat its own after a honeymoon period in which he and his opposite number Nick Hockley had begun to right a historically hostile and suspicious relationship.

The honeymoon is over and you can be sure a few of the wizened veterans at the ACA have issued a joyless “told ya what they’re like” since.

“I think there is a level of frustration,” Greenberg admitted on Gerard Whateley’s SEN program on Monday.

“Not a lot has changed over the last four years except the matter has become public,” Greenberg said. “Tim went through the investigation at the time, he was very forthcoming, he co-operated with the investigation and that was handled both by Cricket Tasmania and Australian Cricket.

“In the words of Cricket Tasmania, the exchange was consensual, it was private, it occurred on one occasion and was between mature adults and it wasn’t repeated.”

Greenberg expressed concerns about the standard set for the captain of the side.

“We need to be careful about setting for whoever takes over the next captaincy that they’ll be perfect as well, because there is no human being I know, not you, not I, not anybody, who will be perfect and not make mistakes,” Greenberg said.

“We are not appointing the Archbishop of Canterbury here where we are looking to appoint someone to the role that will lead our country and lead them well.

“What I do know is if our expectation is that the captain is perfect then we are in all sorts of trouble.

“I don’t know anyone who can measure up to that. Tim’s made a mistake but ultimately what the report was and what was deemed by two investigations was the matter was a private one between two consenting adults. That was the view at the time and that remains the view today.

“Yes they were improper, yes they were poor decisions, but I get a sense that all of us not judge the morality as opposed to other issues, but also to understand that people will make errors of judgment and they will make poor decisions.”