The 28-year-old pacer has taken 164 wickets in 32 tests for Australia since making his debut in 2011 and moreover he is a durable cricketer having missed only a two-test jaunt in 2018 since his comeback.
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Former Australia captain Michael Clarke feels it is the right time for Pat Cummins to take over the captaincy of Australian men’s test team following Tim Paine’s resignation from the post over a ‘sexting’ scandal. Cummins is the front-runner to captain Australia in the upcoming home Ashes series against England starting in Brisbane on 8th December. Many of the former Australian cricketers like Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist and even current England pacer James Anderson consider Cummins as the best option to replace Paine.
The 28-year-old pacer has every aspect to be Australia’s test captain, he is tall, good looking, sufficiently young with lots of international experience, intelligent, well spoken and more importantly has a great cricketing brain. Cummins has always impressed experts with his field placements and clever bowling.
Fast bowlers generally don’t get to captain Australia, Ray Lindwall was the last one to do it in the 1950s. Fast bowling is a physically tiring process, therefore the pacers tend to get injured quite often and require rests at regular intervals so they may miss a number of matches. Therefore batsmen are considered a better option to captain the side.
However Cummins is one of the most durable bowlers in world cricket. He has missed only two tests for Australia since his youthful injury days. Meanwhile he is a regular in all formats of the game.
The right-arm pacer has taken 164 wickets in 32 tests for Australia since making his debut in 2011. He will have plenty of senior players to guide him as a captain if he his given the responsibility by Cricket Australia.
“If we were three or five years on it might be different. But with so much seniority in the team, I think it is the right time for him. Because they can help him.
“Steve Smith, David Warner, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood. These guys have played a truckload of Test cricket. They can be there to help him, with or without the C or VC next to his name,” Clarke said on the Big Sports Breakfast show on Sky Sports Radio.
“You have to allow him time to get into this job. Because he hasn’t had 10 years of captain first-grade or state cricket. But sometimes you can see certain things in people, and I think he’s got it.
“He reads the game. He’s a cricket captain. Looking at on the field tactics. The way he talks to his players. The way he sets the field when he bowls,” Clarke, who has been a vocal supporter of Cummins being made skipper since 2018, added
