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What’s all this nonsense about Patrick Cummins being too young and too inexperienced to wear a baggy green? The sensational 18 year-old speedster is living proof if you’re good enough, you’re old enough.
Who cares he’s played only three Sheffield Shield games, and made 15 limited-over appearances. He’s genuinely quick – 150kph with some left in the tank takes care of that category – and he moves the ball either way in the air.
More importantly, he has an easy loping approach and only energises his action in the final two strides. And the energy he generates within his wiry 192cm (6ft 3 and a bit) frame is astounding.
Name one paceman in world cricket who can match him in all three departments?
The silence is deafening.
Cummins is not only ready for international cricket, but Michael Clarke must give him first use of the new ball starting tonight at Centurion in the first of three ODIs against South Africa. And the two Tests.
It would be a fruitless exercise to have Cummins on tour as a spectator to “learn the ropes”. The only learning is in the middle, in the thick of the action.
Simon Katich was Cummins’ captain for those three Shield games.
“For a kid who is only 18 he has an amazing (cricket) brain on him already.
“Control-wise he knows what he’s trying to do, he’s an absolute dream to captain.
“Patrick has a lot going for him, so we don’t expect to see him around (for NSW) too much”.
Katich has always been a shrewd judge of a cricketer; so too Geoff Lawson.
But the former Test paceman, and a strong contender for the new national selection panel, reckons Cummins isn’t ready for the big time.
“He’s only played three Shield games and is averaging 46. Don’t rush him, let him find his own level in his own time,” was Lawson’s suggestion.
What Lawson didn’t say was Cummins is averaging 10.40 from two international Twenty20s and 14.86 in 13 interstate Twenty20s: two formats where the batsmen are hunting every bowler.
But Cummins has been taking cheap wickets through sheer pace and accuracy.
So let him loose in the five games left on the South African tour.
And the Australian fans can sit back in their lounge-room comfort to enjoy the discomfort and carnage Patrick Cummins will create for years to come.