Pat Cummins‘ journey to becoming Australia’s 47th men’s Test captain has included personal hardships and challenges

Judgement is easily cast. Strengths and faults are measured with hysterical praise as a high watermark and bitter loathing as a nadir.

So, as much as it feels like Australia can’t find fault with Pat Cummins, praise and loathing will happen if history is to be a guide.

How will Cummins cope with the latter? Will he find clarity as the emotional fog descends when a game is getting out of control or, as has been the case too often of late, when off-field controversy strikes the team?

I spent a few weeks speaking with those who know Cummins best, those who have been part of his journey from young quick to Test captaincy, for a Fox Cricket documentary that will be airing soon.

And, as they revealed, there is plenty to Australia’s 47th Test captain.

Young Pat got a rise out of making life uncomfortable for opposition batsmen in grade cricket, making men twice his age question their weekend recreational habits with a whiplash release and searing bounce off any surface.

There was no apprehension, no one thought he didn’t belong.

Pat’s eldest brother, Matt, recalls the day all three Cummins boys were playing second grade for Penrith. Matt, captain that season, was standing in the slips, and casually asked the middle brother, Tim, the wicketkeeper, how hard 16 year-old Pat was hitting the gloves.

“Well,” said Tim, “I’m standing ten paces back from where I was for you.”

Matt realised his youngest brother had a future in the game.

It was clear, even then, that beneath the measured exterior lay a wild competitive streak, something witnessed only by those who received an invite to the Cummins family backyard battles, played on a bowler-friendly wicket at the foot of the Blue Mountains in Glenbrook, slightly downhill and sped up with regular sprays from the hose.

Matt and Tim gave nothing to the younger brother.

Resilience was built very early on.

Only once did they all go to a game of international cricket at the SCG, preferring to watch on TV, and fill in summer days with backyard battles before play, during lunch, tea, and then after stumps.

Parents Peter and Maria harnessed the competitiveness of their three boys, plus two girls Laura and Kara, while prioritising fairness and decency over win-at-all costs desires. Sometimes, harshly so.

Pat was in the under 12s when he was smashing some poor mob to all parts, only for Dad, then his coach, to declare the innings closed with Pat just short of what would have been a first ever – and glorious – century.

“You’ve had enough,” Peter said.

Young Pat was fuming, and a part of him still is. But he understands why Dad made the declaration, and loves the fact both his parents created an environment completely devoid of expectation.

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Brett Lee and Brad Haddin remember Cummins at the very start of his state career. Lee was a hero of Cummins who, like most kids, loved the chainsaw celebration.

So when Lee went down to check out the NSW under 17s squad, he’d notice the kid from Penrith CC, lightning quick, but different from his contemporaries in that he appeared well versed in the art of subtle variation.

He was also a supremely fast learner.

“He bowled super-fast, but knew where the ball was going,” Lee says. “So switched on for a 17 year-old, which is rare.”

A year later, Cummins, 18, was sent on tour with the Australian one-day team to South Africa. As fate would have it, Lee was sent home early, which meant Cummins would stay for the two Test matches.

The first in Cape Town was one of the most calamitous Tests in Australian history. Bowled out for 47. Thrashed. In turmoil.

Ryan Harris wasn’t available for the next Test, so Cummins was rushed in to make his debut for the second Test in Johannesburg. Brad Haddin, the side’s battled-hardened wicketkeeper, was blown away by how centred the debutant was.

“The big characteristics were how he dealt with pressure,” Haddin says. “He came in at a really uncomfortable time … he didn‘t get flustered, everything was young and raw but … the bigger the occasion the more calm he was.

“He‘s shown that through his Test career.”

History now tells us is was a Test career that took seven years to get restarted, as an unsustainable action for bowling 145 kilometres/hour led to multiple stress fractures in his back.

All-time greatness is credited with saving potential greatness.

Cummins went over to Perth in the middle of his Test hiatus to work with the great Dennis Lillee, who this week was elevated to legend status by the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.

The two clicked immediately, with Lillee’s method of gradually reshaping a bowler, not immediately seeking a total reconstruction, aligning with Cummins’ own approach to problem-solving.

“It’s fun as well, exploring what’s possible,” says Cummins, who used his time away from cricket to obtain a business degree from the University of Technology Sydney.

“Just being told something and you have to do it this way, it’s quite black-and-white. You either do it or you don’t.

“And my brain just doesn’t work like that, I find it boring, lose interest really quickly, whereas if it’s more like, ‘Alright how can we work this out together?’ and find a way to solve this problem – I’m all in.”

It’s a revealing insight into Cummins’ evolving leadership style, one which will now be played out in front of a worldwide viewing audience.

Although his most triumphant moments have come in white ball cricket, as a member of the 2015 World Cup and 2021 T20 World Cup-winning squads, the tradition of the red ball version is closest to Cummins’ heart.

“Test cricket is number one for me,” he says. “I grew up watching it. It’s probably the fairest and toughest battle between bat and ball.

“I love the challenge within games, within series, having to totally adapt the way you go about it to try and make a difference and try and do that quicker than anyone else.”

Those views were offered through the prism of leading an attack. The same principles will apply when he leads the team at a time when Australian cricket craves a steady head after successive abdications of the Test captaincy.

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A footnote: the reason Cummins and his family only attended one day of international cricket in his youth was because that particular day was one his parents believed the family couldn’t miss.

It was the day Steve Waugh retired from Test cricket, in 2004, walking off the SCG to a hero’s farewell. The way captain’s should be able to say goodbye.

There will be all sorts of matters to negotiate from here, but if it all goes to plan, Cummins could hope to leave on similar terms, not in controversy, but celebrating in front of those who got him there.

“THE PAT CUMMINS STORY” AIRS DURING THE SECOND ASHES TEST IN ADELAIDE, EXCLUSIVE TO FOX CRICKET.