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As Pat Cummins opens up at the pavilion end, while gazing across the vast empty space of Lord’s a few days before Australia face South Africa in the World Test Championship final, it’s clear that the unexpected opponents this week have helped to frame his remarkable career.
On Wednesday morning, while towering a foot over Temba Bavuma, his 5ft 3in South African counterpart, Cummins will lead Australia for the 34th time, in his 68th Test. The fast bowler stands at the summit of world cricket, his grizzled matinee idol charm allied to the grit which has helped him to become such a successful captain. Australia have won almost everything during his tenure of three and a half years and they are expected to retain their Test title.
But South Africa have been at the heart of the darker moments, from sporting humiliation to moral ignominy, which have dented Australian cricket since Cummins made his international debut. As a teenager he was selected for Australia’s tour of South Africa in 2011. Cummins was 12th man for the first Test at Newlands in Cape Town, which would be the site of the sandpaper scandal that shredded Australia’s reputation in 2018, and he watched in shock as his teammates were bowled out for 47 and crushed in two and a half days.
“That was my first real taste of Test cricket, inside the changing room,” Cummins says ruefully. “I remember being really nervous, even though I wasn’t playing, and fielded for two overs. One ball got hit to me and I fumbled it. I was an 18-year-old thinking: ‘Wow, I’m in the middle of all this.’”
Cummins was called up for the second Test in Johannesburg against a great South Africa side including Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla, Dale Steyn and Morné Morkel. “It felt like the real deal. I’d played a little T20 for Australia where there was a comfort level. But being around Test cricket, and seeing some greats of the game I’d grown up watching on TV, made me think: ‘Oh, this is real.’ I was playing alongside Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey and feeling confused as to how I ended up in that position.”
Cummins took seven wickets, including six in South Africa’s second innings, before scoring an unbeaten 13 as he and Mitchell Johnson steered Australia to a nerve-shredding target of 310 eight wickets down. Named player of the match on his debut, Cummins was flying.
Yet he didn’t play another Test for five years and four months as his injury-ravaged body struggled with the demands of professional cricket. Cummins is grateful now for that delay and he tells a couple of self-deprecating stories which reflect his character.
“It had all come quite easy. Before that tour I’d played three first‑class games and in lots of ways I’d no right to be in the team. I was very fortunate but then it all comes crashing down. The next few years there were lots of injuries and questions: ‘Am I good enough? Do I have to find a real job?’ It was tough and you’re trying to enter the world as an adult. But I learnt patience and consistency and, in some ways, I was very lucky to not have it all on a plate.”
His parents also grounded him. “One of their biggest worries was me getting too big for my boots and, no doubt, I probably did at certain times. There was one instance where I was doing uni part-time. I met the vice-chancellor, who I later found out was the most important person at university. I’d thought: ‘Oh, it can’t be that serious if he’s vice.’ He welcomed me to university and I tried my luck. I was catching the train to uni and it was a nuisance so I said: ‘Do you have any car park spots you could give me?’ Very politely he said: ‘No, but maybe we can find you a paid parking spot.’ I told Mum and she went ballistic, which was never her style.”
The 32-year-old’s smile is tangled. He lost his mother, Maria, to cancer in 2023 but, with affection, he remembers her saying: “‘How dare you ask for that? Who do you think you are?’ She made me email him back to say: ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.’”
Eighteen months later he met his wife, Becky, who comes from Harrogate in Yorkshire. They were in a bar in Sydney and Cummins told her he was a student. “I was into my second or third recurrence of a back stress-fracture. I was a part-time uni student doing rehab so I would have felt a fraud if I’d said I was a professional cricketer.” His cover was blown when, soon after they met, Becky turned a corner in Sydney and saw Cummins wearing his whites in a giant KFC poster.
There will be no escaping his importance this week and Cummins pauses when I ask if he is surprised to be facing South Africa. “In some ways you expect India to be around. England have been quite strong at home and New Zealand always seem to get to finals. But the same case could be made for South Africa in ICC events. We just don’t see a lot of them in Test cricket but it’s nice and different to an Australia-India final.”
He shrugs off Michael Vaughan’s comments that, after beating “pretty much nobody”, South Africa “don’t warrant being in the final”. Cummins says: “You can only beat who you come up against. Our route to the final was pretty tough but I don’t blame South Africa for having a different route.”As to how South Africa might perform at Lord’s, Cummins says: “It’s hard to say because there are so many unknowns. We haven’t played them much [with their last Test series ending in an easy Australian victory at home in 2022-23] but you’ve got to be really well balanced to make the final. Their bowling has always stood out and it’s no different now. [Keshav] Maharaj is a really solid spinner and they’ve always got plenty of quick bowlers who pose a challenge.”
Kagiso Rabada, the spearhead of South Africa’s bowling attack, recently served a one-month ban recently after testing positive for cocaine. There has been speculation in South Africa that Australia will sledge Rabada mercilessly. “It’s not really our style,” Cummins says. “I’d be surprised if that came up.”Australia have made legitimate changes to their abrasive cricket since the 2018 sandpaper saga against South Africa. Cummins, who is an ambassador for New Balance, exemplifies the improved reputation.
But the ball-tampering saga remains an awkward topic. He listens quietly while I tell him about my 2021 interview with Cameron Bancroft who, as a callow opening batter trying to find his way in Test cricket, followed instructions to use sandpaper to rough up the ball. His captain, Steve Smith, David Warner and Bancroft were banned and the batter, when pressed on whether any of the bowlers had known of the plan, told me that “it’s probably self-explanatory”.
Cummins took seven wickets in that Test, which Australia lost heavily, and I ask if he really had no idea what was being done to the ball. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he says bluntly.
He concedes, however, that the fate of his two predecessors, Smith and Tim Paine, who both resigned tearfully, made him apprehensive about assuming the captaincy in 2021. “There was a lot of trepidation. One, because I was uncertain how I was going to go as a captain. I didn’t really have any experience. But also trepidation because it’s a big role and things can turn against you overnight. Part of me thought: ‘Maybe captaincy isn’t for me.’ But there’re enough great parts of the job I really enjoy.”
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What are the hardest aspects? “When things aren’t going well and you’ve got to be the front of that. You’ve got to keep everyone positive, chat to media, keep the team aligned. But I’ve been very lucky that there haven’t been too many of those moments. When they have cropped up, the playing group bands together and makes us stronger.”
This week marks the first Test that Australia have played at Lord’s since the drama two years ago when England were chasing a big total with an inspired Ben Stokes and a pugnacious Jonny Bairstow at the crease. The last ball of the 52nd over flew harmlessly into the gloves of the Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey. Bairstow thought he had made sure he was in his crease before strolling down the pitch. Carey threw the ball and hit the stumps, Australia appealed and the umpire, who hadn’t called for the end of the over, raised his finger.
There was outrage in the ground and the Long Room where the florid anger of many MCC members was accompanied by booing and shouts of “shame” as the Australians walked past. Warner and Usman Khawaja were even confronted by heated England supporters.
“It was a series with such high emotion,” Cummins says. “Everyone was so wound up but my gut reaction was pretty similar to what I feel now. If you take all the emotion away it’s just a simple out and you don’t need to make it any bigger. It’s out, move on. I’ve seen it happen before.”
When Cummins missed the Champions Trophy this year his stand-in, Smith, withdrew a run‑out appeal after Afghanistan’s Noor Ahmad ambled out of his crease in a group game. It suggested some kind of change in Australian attitudes, but Cummins says: “I can’t remember that specifically. Sorry. I think it was slightly different circumstances but, look, we want to play hard and fair and I think over my tenure we’ve got it right just about every time.”
Would he do it again? “Yes,” Cummins says firmly of Bairstow’s stumping. The view in the Australian camp is that England would do the same and they “tried it three times” previously.
All this is said calmly, five months before Ashes hostilities resume in Australia. Cummins is vague about England’s excitement around Jacob Bethell – he has heard the talk “a little bit,” adding: “When he batted [on his Test debut in New Zealand] was it three? I haven’t seen much.” He also glosses over England’s current uncertainty around their injury‑riddled bowling attack. “I don’t really care. It feels so long away.”
Cummins admits that his all-conquering team are approaching the end of an era. “Yes. No doubt. We’ve got quite a few players who are past their mid-30s and there seems to be a natural attrition rate into the late‑30s. If you’d asked me a year or two ago I would have said: ‘It’s going to be a huge change. There’s a little bit to be worried about.’ But we’ve seen Josh Inglis, Sam Konstas, [Nathan] McSweeney debut throughout [Australia’s] summer. [Beau] Webster’s come in plus a few others have debuted in white-ball cricket. I don’t think the transition will be as jarring as we first thought.”
Does he have concerns about the future of Test cricket – the format he loves most? “Yes and no. In Australia, no. Each summer it seems to get stronger and stronger. The ticket sales for the Ashes are just berserk the last week. But that’s not the reality for many Test-playing nations and one of the beauties about Test cricket is playing in totally different conditions with different challenges. I’d hate Test cricket to turn into only a couple of nations.”
In 25 years will Australia and England still be playing Tests against Pakistan, West Indies and South Africa? “It’s really hard to say. I hope so. But if we just let things play out, probably not. There needs to be some intervention and finding a way – maybe its dedicated windows for franchise cricket. I really hope so because they are cricket-loving nations as well. They’re always going to have good players and [offer] a tough challenge.”
Can Cummins play for another five years? “Yes, I’d hope so. Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood are a couple of years older than me, but they don’t show any signs of slowing up. I’m trying to look after myself and I’d love to play in my mid-30s. I feel great and physically as good as I have in a few years. I love the job and just want to keep doing it – particularly in Test cricket. I want to keep playing for a long time and do it with good people while making it fun and hopefully winning along the way.”
