Pat Cummins waited more than five years between his first two Tests
Pat Cummins won his debut Test at 18 with six wickets and the winning boundary, then vanished from Test cricket for 1,946 days with a broken-down back. He came back to become the world's top-ranked bowler, and later the first fast bowler to captain Australia full-time.
Cummins grew up in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, one of five children, idolising Brett Lee. At three he lost the tip of the middle finger on his bowling hand when a sister accidentally shut a door on it. He was 17 when New South Wales gave him a first-class debut in March 2011, and by November he was playing a Test in Johannesburg, the youngest Australian to do so since Ian Craig in 1953. He took six for 79 in the second innings, hit the winning four and was named man of the match.
Then his body gave out. A heel injury, repeated stress fractures in his back and a string of lost summers kept him out of Tests for years; he was ruled out of a home season four times in five years. During one layoff he worked with Dennis Lillee to rebuild his action. He still slipped into the squad that won the 2015 World Cup, playing four matches.
His Test return finally came in March 2017, and this time he stayed fit. He topped the wicket list in the 4-0 Ashes win of 2017-18, and in 2019 won the Allan Border Medal and became the number one Test bowler, the first Australian there since Glenn McGrath. That year he reached 914 ranking points, the equal fifth-highest ever.
In November 2021 he replaced Tim Paine as Test captain. Australia took the 2023 World Test Championship final against India, and months later he led an inexperienced-looking ODI side that lost its first two World Cup games, won nine straight and beat the hosts in the final. He also captains Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League.
Source: Pat Cummins
