Cummins should target next Ashes for Test return

The inevitable push to fast track Pat Cummins into the Test team has begun and even Australia’s bowling coach David Saker is on board.

Cummins return to the Test XI should come as early as their next Test, against Pakistan in Brisbane next Friday, according to former wicketkeepers Brad Haddin and Darren Berry.

Meanwhile, Australian captain Steve Smith told media it was “possible” Cummins could join the Test tour of India in February, with Saker also nominating this as a realistic goal.

This fervour to get Cummins back in a baggy green has emerged each summer since the outrageously-gifted paceman stunned the cricket community by taking seven wickets on Test debut as an 18-year-old.

It is easy to understand the excitement around Cummins and the desire to see him in Australia’s Test attack. This is a young man who, in a stop-start international career across three formats, has taken 67 wickets at an average of 21.

Since returning from another long-term injury this summer, Cummins has been in scorching form, grabbing 21 wickets at an average of 17 from eight 50-over matches for Australia and NSW.

He was arguably man-of-the-match in his second match game for Australia on Tuesday when he took 4-41 including the key wickets of New Zealand guns Kane Williamson and Martin Guptill. In that match Cummins left no doubt as to why massive hype has followed him for five years through layoff after layoff.

He bowled with a potent combination of speed and skill only possessed by a couple of cricketers worldwide. What would have caught the eye to the casual observer was the manner in which Cummins hurried the Kiwi batsmen with his pace, which was consistently above 145kmh and as high as 151kmh.

Yet it was his subtle skills which undid Guptill and Williamson. The New Zealand opener nicked a beautiful leg cutter from Cummins, who then fooled Williamson with a clever slower ball.

He was the standout bowler in the match. That’s an extraordinary effort when you’ve only recently returned from a year out of the game and the list of quicks you outbowled includes Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Trent Boult and Tim Southee.

What will happen if Cummins is thrown into the line-up at some point in the Tests against Pakistan? I’d back him to cause major headaches for the visiting batsmen, more than would the incumbent third seamer Jackson Bird.

But I’d also believe that Cummins would be put at serious risk of breaking down once more. At 23 years old he is now approaching the stage at which the male body typically starts to fully mature.

It is at around this age that many express pacemen of the past shook off the injuries that had plagued them in their teens and early 20s.

This was the case for the last two quality express bowlers to represent Australia, Mitchell Johnson and Brett Lee. It might surprise you to know Johnson had actually played a lot less professional cricket than Cummins when he was 23.

By the end of the 2004-05 season, Johnson had stepped on to the field just 12 times (six first-class and six List A matches). Cummins, meanwhile, has played 94 matches (48 T20s, 38 List A, and eight first-class fixtures).

Johnson, of course, went on to take almost 600 international wickets for Australia across all three formats. If Cummins body holds up he could well match Johnson’s record. In fact he is, in my opinion, a more talented paceman than Johnson.

Only in short bursts of his career did Johnson ever display the accuracy which has been a hallmark of Cummins bowling since his Test debut five years ago. In that match, South Africa boasted a magnificent batting line-up featuring four all-time great Test cricketers – Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla and Graeme Smith.

Coincidentally it was Johnson who the Proteas feared leading into that Test, with the left armer having roughed them up in the previous two Test series between the countries.

Yet Johnson managed just 2-168 for the match, while Cummins snared 7-117, including the huge wickets of Kallis, Amla and de Villiers. Since that day Australian fans have dreamed of a fully fit Cummins tearing the Test format apart. I have no doubt that if his body holds together he can become one of the greatest bowlers Australia have ever produced.

But after five years of crushed hopes, that “if” keeps getting bigger and bigger. The key, surely, is not to rush Cummins back into Tests. The man himself has expressed reservations in the past about the prospect of being vaulted into the rigours of five-day cricket without adequate preparation.

It would be tragically comical to pick him against Pakistan when he hasn’t played a first-class match in 16 months, and only four in the past five years. If Cummins is considered ready for a return to red ball cricket then the aim should be for him to play four or five Shield matches for New South Wales after Christmas.

The next step would be to venture to England in April or May and get a half a dozen more first-class outings under his belt. If he gets through that 10 or so games fit, healthy and in form he could be strongly considered for the two scheduled winter Tests against Bangladesh.

That would leave him well placed for a tilt at England in next summer’s Ashes. If, instead, he is rushed back into action either against Pakistan or India, the selectors will be playing Russian Roulette with Cummins’ health.