Patrick Cummins

A superb young talent is Pat Cummins. 18 years old, plays for new south wales, and is already bowling above 90mph on a regular basis. Did anyone see his performance for australia the other night? 3-25 from 4 overs on his internatilnal debut, in the t20 against south africa. He is gonna have a long international career

Watched a bit of him on Youtube, but didn't see the game the other day. Seems to have a similar action to Steven Finn (or is it just me?). It is nice and repeatable and looks not to put too much stress on the body so hopefully he can have a longer and injury free career, unlike someone like Tait or Lee. Pace doesn't necessarily mean he will have a good international career, but he has all the tools so has a great chance! As an England fan, hopefully he won't be too good!

will be intresting to see if he comes over and plays a bit of county cricket. Come on grayson sign him up for essex

patrick cummins is such a fantastic talent. i put him up there with the disgraced mohammad amir, as a wise head on young shoulders. only 18, yet he's already got a top class slower ball. once he builds up he could go over the 160kph mark.

he will probably play today in the 2nd t20, between aus, and SA. will be very intresting to see how he does.

Johnson might be a worried man come the Indian series.

Cummins will have to be captained well. He bowled a lot of overs in that 2nd test, and is now out of the NZ series with a heel injury. He is only 18 and they must manage his workload.

shows the importance of watson in the side as well. AS soon as he isnt fit to bowl everyone else bowls a lot of overs.

Just watching Inside Cricket now... a very good episode.

The panel discussed the idea of Mitch not playing for Oz again. Sounds a stretch, I know... but with the new Head Coach & Admin maybe they will continue with the youngster policy. We definitely have lacked a strike bowler (in the Oz sense) for a while now and MJ is just too inconsistent in the opinion of some people. He seems to be on the outer for now.

Even though Mickey Arthur said today that 'Ricky and Hussey could be around for a while longer' and heaped praises on them - on the other hand if Warner & Khawaja score well in Brisbane and either Ricky or Mike fails - then it will be hard to keep them in the side. They both need big scores against NZ and India.

The Gabba pitch will suit our bowlers a whole lot more than the one at AB Oval this week - however the NZ top 6 is very confident and believe now is the time to produce a shock result. Australia's last loss there was in 1988.

Watson sort of agreed with the panel (BJ, Junior, Fleming) that perhaps he should bat down the order if the replacement openers do well in the next few weeks. Interesting.

Good chat with Warne now - such a wise old fox. He is as competitive as ever and looks very fit to say the least. He admits he at first didn't think much about T20 but now is an utter devotee. He reckons the tactics and decision making is even more intense than Test Matches because of the speed of the game. What an ambassador...

Aus have enough options to not rely on picking Johnson at the moment simply on the basis that he has at sometimes been good, but Id be suprised if he never got in a squad again ever. England had a hard time moving on from Harmisson no matter how many times he got dropped, I can see a parralell with where Aus are at the moment. They seem to be on teh right road but dont yet have 4 pacemen who pick themsleves. Youd expedct that with injuries and changes in form Johnson would get looked at again even if he is ditched for the coming tour.

LB

It can't be too long before Josh Hazlewood bags a Baggy Green? I remeber him during the u19 World Cup a few years ago, and he was streets ahead of every other fast bowler. It was a shame to me, when he done his back in last year, that he missed out in India. Certainly a fabulous bowler in the making.

Yes, he's a fine young bowler. He took 4 wickets yesterday against WA in the Shield match. If he keeps producing match winning performances like that and the u19 WC... it won't be long before he gets another Test call up and the inevitable Baggy Green.

How did some of those other players with great Sheild stats do when they stepped up to test level recently?

Im not so inclined to believe in them as a sole indicator of greatnessI was 10 years ago.

Well, if you wind the clock back 24 years before that I think they have generally done pretty well wouldn't you say?

Also, who has the better record in England... our Shield players of course!

Linebreaker wrote:Well, if you wind the clock back 24 years before that I think they have generally done pretty well wouldn't you say?

Also, who has the better record in England... our Shield players of course!

Yeah no question mate, that was the point I was making was kind of that. In the past we were all in awe of these guys stepping up out of Sheffield cricket and destroying England and the county game without even trying.
Just the last coupel of years that seems to have faded. Theres been some guys with massive reputations come and really let themsleves down in the test arena. So if I hear "such and such aussie goaverages 50 in Sheild cricket" I no longer think hes Chuck Norris till he comes up and proves it. I guess mostly that applies to opening batsmen and spinners though.
At the last Ashes there was a lot of talk of Shield cricket not being as tough and competitive as it used to be coming from the various Aus pundits, also that players focus has inevtibaly shifted to the limited overs formats.

It wa skind of a throwaway comemnt, nothing specific against this indiviual lad. More a general point, and Im sure the psositive moises you guys are making about him are vased on more than just that return but also an asesment of his playing ability and raw talent. Id say the same for county players, I dont follow the scene closely enough to get too excited just because some players avergaed 60 odd with the bat or took 100 wickets in a season anymore.

Yeah, of course it's all ahead of them to prove themselves each and every time when they walk out onto the Test arena. As we have seen with our guys recently - it's no good to have these domestic reputations when the team fails to fire as a whole and the pressure to perform miracles rises beyond any particular individual's realistic capability.

Please understand how much it hurts to have that 'myth' shattered by your boys last time. All I can say is that I do believe there has been some reaction on our part since the last tour and there does seem to be more activity as players compete to fill in for the injured ones. I guess that's a natural reaction though.

Anyway, we'll see if we're made of the right stuff in the NZ and India series.

I was pleased to see CA step in so quickly and rule Cummins out (as much as I wanted to see him play in the 1st Test). He had stated on Monday that 'he'll be OK' ...and declared himself ready but that was before the fitness test obviously. Then that evening - he was out of contention along with the other 4 players. A tough decision but I'm hoping it was the sensible one.

shame that pat is out of the NZ series, he would have caused their batsman some real problems.

I'm just waiting for the team to be announced - who will be in... Pattinson, Starc or Cutting? (2 of the 3)