SYDNEY: Australia captain Pat Cummins wants to play international cricket for another five years but has already experienced one period of burnout which forced him to reassess the balance in his life.

The 30-year-old paceman played his first Test as a teenager in South Africa in 2011 but did not play his second until six years later as he was nursed through a series of injuries.

Once he did return to Australia’s colours, however, he quickly discovered the almost unrelenting demands on the top modern players.

“Cricket’s basically 12 months of the year,” he told former England footballer Rio Ferdinand on the Get Real with Rio vodcast. “There’s always a cricket game going on somewhere, and I played non-stop for a year or two. This is about four or five years ago, I kind of just came back from injuries.

“And I was just spent, like burnt out, and I just remember thinking, ‘Jeez, I’m 25 here but I want to do this until I’m 35. I’ve got to find a way to balance all these different things’.”

Cummins’s last action came on Australia’s tour of India earlier this year, which he left early to return home to be with his terminally ill mother.

He said her death from breast cancer in March was still “pretty raw” but he was glad he had been able to spend time with her and his family at the end.

“I think it hits home the kind of person you want to be, the kind of father you want to be. So from that side, it’s been quite good. Lots of memories,” he said. “But in terms of the grief I guess we’ll keep working through that.”

Next up for Cummins and Australia is the World Test Championship final against India in London next month followed quickly by the five-Test Ashes series against England.

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2023