Pat Cummins made his Test debut for Australia at the tender age of 18 before injuries looked set to cut short a career which promised so much, but he has recovered to become a truly world-class fast bowler.
He has also graduated to become the Baggy Greens' captain in both Test and ODI cricket and enjoyed a truly outstanding 2023 as he led his side to the World Test Championship title, a 50-over World Cup triumph and the retention of the Ashes in England.
Having missed so much cricket when he was younger, Cummins still has plenty left in the tanks as he nears his 32nd birthday and he is that rare sort who is equally impressive across all formats of the international game.
Career record
| Matches | Overs | Maidens | Runs | Wickets | Average | |
| Test | 62 | 2102.2 | 464 | 6063 | 269 | 22.53 |
| ODI | 88 | 763.5 | 44 | 4042 | 141 | 28.66 |
| T20I | 52 | 190 | 3 | 1412 | 57 | 24.77 |
Ashes record
| Matches | Overs | Maidens | Runs | Wickets | Average |
| 19 | 693.3 | 143 | 2194 | 91 | 24.10 |
Cummins makes immediate impact
Cummins burst on to the international scene on a tour of South Africa in late 2011 and he took to Test cricket like a duck to water.
He took seven wickets on debut, including 6-79 in the second innings, before hitting the winning runs in a nerve-shredding two-wicket win over the Proteas at Wanderers.
However, serious injury problems then intervened and he would not resurface in Test cricket until March 2017, with Cummins soon showing his quality by taking 23 wickets at 24.65 in the Ashes series against England.
A matter of months later he would take 22 wickets on his return to South Africa with the Baggy Greens, including another nine wickets at the Wanderers.
The English summer of 2019 saw Cummins lead the way with 29 wickets in a thrilling series which ended 2-2 and he would add another 21 victims to his record in the home Ashes series in 2021/22.
Nineteen of his 62 Tests have been against England and his is already close to completing a century of Ashes wickets, while he taken exactly 50 wickets in 13 Test appearances against India.
Cummins is blessed with the combination of not only being genuinely quick, but also being able able to extract bounce from even the most placid of surfaces and being highly accurate - with his Test economy rate running at 2.88 runs per over.
He has taken five wickets in an innings 12 times in Tests, doing so four times against Pakistan and among his four six-wicket hauls his best Test figures are the 6-23 he took against Sri Lanka at the Gabba in January 2019.
Cummins completed the first of two ten-wicket matches in that clash with the Islanders, with his next ten-wicket return coming against Pakistan in the 2023 Boxing Day Test at the MCG.
Not only has Cummins been a key figure of a top-quality pace attack which also features Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, but he also became Test skipper in late 2021 and has since proved himself to be a formidable leader.
His first series as captain ended in a 4-0 thrashing of England in Australia, while in 2023 he lead the Baggy Greens to World test Championship final success against India and then oversaw the retention of the Ashes in England.
ODI record equally impressive
Cummins has racked up 88 one-day international appearances for Australia to date and his haul of 141 wickets at 28.66 is hugely impressive, while his ODI career to date was topped off in style with a World Cup victory in India in 2023.
As with his Test career, Cummins has played against England and India far more often than any other opponent and his best figures are the 5-70 he took against India in Mohali in March 2019, in a match which the Aussies won by four wickets by chasing down 359 to win.
He would strike again against India in the World Cup final in Ahmedabad in November 2023, taking 2-34 from ten highly effective overs, claiming the crucial wicket of Virat Kohli as the Aussies claimed a comprehensive six-wicket victory.
T20 World Cup win also on the CV
Cummins pretty much completed the international set with the 2023 50-over World Cup victory, having been part of the Aussie side who claimed the T20 World Cup in late 2021, thrashing New Zealand by eight wickets in the final in Dubai.
He has played in 52 T20 internationals to date and has taken 57 wickets at an economy rate of 7.43 runs per over.
Cummins has yet to claim four wickets in a match, with his best figures still the 3-15 he took against Pakistan in Dubai in September 2012.
The pace ace had previously marked his T20I debut by taking 3-25 against South Africa at Newlands in October 2011.
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