Gillespie Is Backing Cummins To Stay Fit

Adam Collins learns why new Sussex coach says if the Aussie quick can listen to his body he will beat injury problems

- Adam Collins

 There was an element of the unknown when Pat Cummins returned to Test cricket after more than five years away in Ranchi this March. No one dared doubt his status as the most gifted quick of his generation. But having played so little long-form cricket to age 23, acquiring so many brutal injuries along the way, his call-up for India was laced with obvious risk.

We needn’t have worried. The New South Welshman was “absolutely amazing” on his return to the big time, according to Steve Smith, for the verve he was able to find from the lifeless track. A “superstar” in the eyes of coach Darren Lehmann. Fast forward to Australia’s second Asian tour of the year in Bangladesh, and such was the confidence in him that selectors opted to enter the must-win second Test with Cummins their only seamer. As the newly anointed attack leader, Cummins was a natural, and a major factor in their four-day victory.

Next was a cauldron of a different kind over the last fortnight: an Ashes series. Cummins’ first Tests on home soil, no less. Sure enough, his influence on it already has made him indispensable to the side in every available way. If setting out as you plan to go on, there was no better start on the opening day than his trapping of Joe Root with what he described as a “one in a hundred” inswinger.

Then at Adelaide, while Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc received plaudits for bowling out England on the final day, it was lost in the commentary that Cummins got that collapse in motion the night before with a searing full delivery to smash Dawid Malan’s stumps.