In just three years, Pat Cummins has achieved the impossible. The Australian Test cricket captain has revitalised a fractured national team, restored the baggy green’s tarnished image, and inspired a new generation to take up the sport. Now, Australia’s favourite son is stepping out of his comfort zone and into a bold new era.
It was a balmy Johannesburg afternoon in 2011 when the legend of Pat Cummins first emerged. For months, I had heard stories of the Western Sydney quick whose vicious right arm decimated the limited-overs competition, leaving a string of bewildered batsmen in its wake. Perhaps it was a nostalgia hangover from the McGrath/Gillespie era, or maybe it was jealousy, but I didn’t believe the softly spoken 18-year-old with the Calvin Klein model looks was the answer to our red-ball prayers. I was wrong.
From the moment he stepped onto the field, Pat Cummins was right at home. For hours, he charged into the crease, firing darts at the opposition batsmen with all the fervour of a man possessed, and just when it seemed he was spent, he would march back to his bowler’s mark, ready to do it all again. In the second innings of his maiden Test, Cummins’ tenacity proved invaluable. The lanky right-armer tore through the Proteas’ middle order, claiming six wickets in a ferocious performance that single-handedly sealed the series. At long last, Cummins had arrived.
It’s been over a decade since that break-through moment and Cummins, now 31, is enjoying the fruits of a remarkable career. When we catch up in Sydney, the Aussie Test captain is fresh off a European vacation, a rare break from the rigours of international cricket. Calm and reposed, Cummins looks a stark departure from the calculated quick we’re used to seeing steam in from the City End on Boxing Day, but that will change soon.
“I’ve had a couple of months of rest to freshen up,” he tells me. “I’ve been getting in the gym and started bowling a few weeks ago. I had a bowl this morning, actually. All feeling good and shaping up for a pretty massive summer.”
The Aussie captain is just a few weeks out from a blockbuster five-Test series against bitter rivals India that promises to deliver no shortage of fiery moments. Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s men have proven to be an unpleasant thorn in the Australian team’s side for close to a decade, a feud that has spawned some of the sport’s most controversial moments. Cummins, ever the optimist, believes the series should play out like any other, but even he admits that there is always a level of unpredictability whenever these two sides meet.
“I’d like to think there won’t be any fireworks, but if history is anything to go by, there probably will be,” Cummins concedes. “It’s five test matches—so you have to add that layer of fatigue into your series thinking. There’s always something that pops up throughout an Indian series that’s semi-controversial, and kind of takes it up that extra notch. So I wouldn’t be surprised if there are.”
For Cummins, the significance of the upcoming tour is two-fold. Not only is it the first time Australia has faced India on home soil since 2021; it’s also his first in the driver’s seat. So effortlessly has he slipped into the captaincy role that it’s easy to forget that at one stage, he struggled to even get on the field.
By any measure, a man-of-the-match performance on debut should be a moment of triumph, but for Pat Cummins, the Johannesburg miracle was to be the beginning of five-year battle with injury. Stress fractures in his heel and back saw him out of the Aussie side and relegated to the sidelines, meanwhile, his countrymen notched up Ashes victories, secured the Border–Gavaskar Trophy and even nabbed a World Cup Championship. Cummins would have to wait until 2017 for another chance to prove himself in the Test match arena, and this time, he wouldn’t let it go.
With a series-leading 23 wickets, Cummins’ performance in the 2017/18 Ashes Series capped off a comeback few believed was possible. To the naked eye, he was still the same prospect, tall and cumbersome with a ferocious short-ball and the kind of pace that crept up on batsman like a thief in the night, but with his second stint in national colours, something just felt different.
The raw talent that had always been there suddenly felt more refined, as if the time on the sidelines had given Cummins the benefit of perspective. With one outstanding series, the rising star cemented his place in the Australian pace lineup and it wasn’t long before leadership chatter emerged.
When Tim Paine unceremoniously stepped down in 2021, Cummins was the undisputed front-runner—the only question mark remained whether the Aussie paceman’s body could hold up. Three years on, the calm and collected Cummins isn’t just surviving the role, he’s making it his own.
“When you’re new to any role, you want to sit back and see how it’s done, but also, you’ve got to get your hands dirty. You want to get stuck in straight away.
“I think where the team is at the moment, it’s quite settled, so I spend more time probably just a step back and just letting things kind of play out,” he tells me. “Obviously you’ve got to step in at certain times, and there are loads of decisions that are on you, but I feel like I’m quite relaxed about it all now.”
In many ways, Cummins’ leadership style is a breath of fresh air—a far stretch from the iron fist rule that former greats Allan Border and Steve Waugh famously adopted throughout the ‘90s. The tenacity is still there, but in Cummins’ Australian side, all players have a say in how matches are decided.
“There are always a few elements,” he acknowledges. “I think one thing is, we’ve all got the common goal of wanting to win a series and do well, which is great. So you don’t need to motivate the players. They’re already motivated. Luckily at the moment, we get on really well as a team. So it’s about making sure we keep fostering that, keep looking after each other, but keep having fun. That’s why we all started playing cricket. That’s what I think brings the best out of us as players, but also makes us work best as a team also.”
It’s refreshing to hear an Aussie sportsman approach their trade with an air of enjoyment. For too long, we’ve viewed athletes as impenetrable beings—asked to be personable but not inauthentic; powerful without intimidation; have opinions but never voice them. Pat Cummins is the antithesis of that.
Reserved, though he may be, the Aussie captain is not afraid to speak his mind; often, at the expense of his personal profile. In 2022, Cummins famously made headlines after expressing concerns to Cricket Australia over its then-sponsorship deal with Alinta Energy. In a media interview, the Aussie captain voiced his “ethical objections” about the company’s gas-fired power stations, prompting widespread criticism from media outlets and countless ‘anti-woke’ comments from social media users who cruelly labelled him ‘Captain Planet’.
Alinta would officially conclude its $40 million partnership the following year, which Cricket Australia claimed was not a result of Cummins’ comments, but the precedent was set—Cummins announced himself as a leader who wasn’t afraid to be bold.
“You’ve got to stand up for things that you believe in, that you’re passionate about. And you want to show off your individuality as well,” he tells me. “You want to live a life where you’re doing things your own way. So I guess that’s how I try and live my life.”
Cummins’ willingness to step outside his realm and speak on non-cricket issues is one reason why the Aussie skipper has transcended the sport. No longer just another athlete with a squeaky-clean image, Cummins has become synonymous with taking a stand and daring to be bold. With his latest project, the cricketer is going places even he never imagined possible.
In a move rarely seen in the cricketing world, Cummins is making the brash and bold shift into fashion. The hulking sportsman has unveiled an exclusive signature collection with Italian eyewear brand Carrera that merges sports attitude with contemporary lifestyle elements.
With the partnership, Pat worked alongside Carrera’s Padova-based designers to conceptualise the collection, which comprises three new sunglasses and three optical frames. As he explains, it was a project that took him far outside his comfort zone.
“I’ve worn Carrera a lot over the past five to ten years, and the opportunity came up to work with the team on my own collection. I’ve never really done anything similar to this, so it as awesome to scratch that creativity itch that I didn’t really know that I had. Teaming up with a very clever set of designers, particularly over in Italy, has been amazing. It blew me away, really. I loved it.”
Admittedly, cricket hasn’t enjoyed the same crossover appeal that sports like golf and tennis have, but perhaps it’s a matter of talent. Captivating stars like Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have certainly helped bridge the latter’s popularity, and if anyone has the look and following to make cricket fashion’s ‘next big thing’, it’s Pat.
“That crossover between sports and lifestyle is pretty big nowadays,” he says. “I feel like there must be an updated way to do what we wear rather than long whites. On the field, really, you’ve got footwear or you’ve got sunglasses as the only kind of choices you can make to make your own. So at least we’ve got the eyewear ticked off now.”
In a fitting nod to Cummins’ career, each piece in the new Carrera collection is adorned with a familiar through-line; the lush hues of the baggy green. Inspired by the Australian national team’s iconic colours, the frames also feature Pat’s signature printed in gold and the inscription “Pat Cummins Selection” on the temples. The subtle reference to cricket’s most iconic headwear, Cummins says, was entirely serendipitous.
“It was almost coincidental that they came together. Carrera has never done green before; it’s always that Italian red,” he says. “ (The designers) were not huge cricket fans, but they thought the green and the gold looked really awesome and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s green and gold, it’s Australia, it’s baggy green’.”
“There are hints of flashiness in there, but the shapes are classic. If I wasn’t doing a collection with Carrera, these are the types of glasses I’d be wearing anyway. So to be able to handpick them and make them exactly how I want to wear them is great.”
Hearing him describe the new collection, you get an undeniable sense of who Pat Cummins is as a person. Classic by design yet unapologetic in his progressive stance, the Australian Test captain represents a new breed of athlete; one who balances the pressures of leadership with the steadfastness of his beliefs. As he admits, it’s not always easy, but if the last three years have taught us anything, it’s that Pat Cummins is not afraid to go his own way.
“Take a risk. You only live once, so make a statement.”
“I always want to stand out for the pack a little bit. You don’t want to be totally out there just for the sake of it, but you want to feel good. You want to wear things that make you feel confident. When I ask my wife for advice, she always says to go bold. You only get one life, so you might as well do it your own way.”
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