Why the most important man in Australian cricket is playing in the US

Pat Cummins is arguably the most important man in Australian cricket and the national selection chief has explained why he’s playing in the US.

Australian Test captain Pat Cummins took a wicket in his Major League Cricket debut in the US, playing with the full support of national selectors before he returns home for a crucial three-month period to prepare for a defining series as captain against India.

Cummins was given the green light to play for the San Francisco Unicorns despite 12 months of planning to give the national skipper a lengthy playing break post the T20 World Cup to have him primed for the five-match series that begins on November 22 in Perth.

That plan included leaving him out of the 11-match white-ball tour of Scotland and the UK and selection chief George Bailey said the deal to play in the US, where Cummins signed a multi-year contract with a view to working towards life after cricket, had “come up late” and wouldn’t change their approach.

“This is something we have been planning for him and with him for about 12 months, looking at the series we are prioritising and how important he is for us as a leader,” Bailey said this week after confirming Cummins would skip the UK tour.

“This was the gap. The MLC opportunity came up late.

MLC debut ✅
First MLC wicket ✅

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“As far as the plan goes, it’s effectively an extra 18 or 19 days that he is up for, it doesn’t fundamentally change the plan we have for him. Certainly, in terms of building him up and getting him ready for the Australian summer … it’s really busy.”

While Cummins won’t be playing for a significant period when he returns from the US, Bailey said he wouldn’t be “resting”.

“It will be a pretty heavy period for him, he’s got a couple of things he needs to work on physically,” Bailey said.

“He’s had a lot of cricket and this is an opportunity to really set himself up for the next period of time.

“That’s a constant discussion around players and certainly multi-format players who are playing everything.”

Pat Cummins was at Wimbledon before heading to the US. Picture: Francois Nel/Getty Image

The prospect of five Tests across seven weeks could put pressure on the “robust” line-up of senior fast bowlers, with Cummins, Mitch Starc and Josh Hazlewood remaining the first-choice players.

But Bailey said the likes of Lance Morris and Jhye Richardson, having worked through injuries, could get a “hell of a lot” of cricket over the upcoming summer.

“As far as the fast bowling group goes, I think we’ve got a pretty exciting bunch there that we haven’t had the opportunity to get a lot of games into across the formats predominantly because we’ve had a highly successful and robust senior group of fast bowlers,“ Bailey said.

“Clearly, some of the decisions made around this series is around prioritising and getting guys right for what will be a really big summer, and for some guys this is an opportunity to get a little bit more work into what they are going to need to be ready for that.”

Originally published as Why the most important man in Australian cricket is playing in the US