Fit-again Pat Cummins no longer 'hesitant'
Aug 15, 2017 - 5:00 PM Express paceman Pat Cummins finally has cause to feel bullish about his prospects of playing a Test on Australian soil.Cummins enjoyed a mesmerising Test debut at age 18, humbling South Africa to earn man-of-the-match honours in Johannesburg almost six years ago.
A series of serious injuries stymied Cummins' development but he returned to cricket's grandest stage earlier this year.
Cummins played both the third and fourth Tests against India. There is now no sign of lingering self-doubt ahead of a two-Test tour of Bangladesh and home Ashes series.
"Coming into last summer I still hadn't had a real big block of cricket so I guess I was still a little bit hesitant," Cummins said after day two of Australia's intra-squad game in Darwin.
"I bowled quite a few overs throughout the summer and over in India ... I feel like I'm in a really good place.
"I'm really confident with my body at the moment. It's something I don't really have to think about.
"I've had about four or five weeks off bowling then about another month of building up, so it's been almost the perfect lead-in to a big block of cricket."
That run begins with the first Test against Bangladesh, starting in Dhaka on August 27.
Cummins, a certain starter in Australia's XI given the injury-enforced absence of Mitchell Starc, is capable of hitting the 150 km/h mark and managed to extract potent bounce out of a flat track in Ranchi earlier this year.
The 24-year-old acknowledged his chief role in Bangladesh will be to dry up the runs.
But he also noted there will be times when skipper Steve Smith asks his quicks to "maybe try to intimidate".
"In India, a couple of the wickets had a little bit of pace and bounce in it, so we were able to use the bouncer a bit more," Cummins said.
"If the ball is swinging, we'll try to get a breakthrough, but (for fast bowlers) there are normally a lot of tough overs on the subcontinent."
Cummins struck teammate Glenn Maxwell during a fiery spell in a training game on Tuesday, when he also dismissed Marcus Stoinis for a duck.
"I've been bowling in the nets for quite a while but there's nothing like bowling in a game - you get a little sorer and put in a little bit more effort," he said.
"I was really happy with how a couple of spells went."
Source: AAP
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