Cummins in the spotlight
Eighteen-year-old fast bowler Patrick Cummins is hot property
Akhila Ranganna
25-Feb-2013
Eighteen-year-old fast bowler Patrick Cummins is hot property. He is the youngest player ever to receive a Cricket Australia contract, and is being touted as the most exciting fast bowler to emerge since Brett Lee. However, as Malcolm Conn in the Daily Telegraph reports, he is also at the centre of a brawl between CA and New South Wales over how to manage him.
It didn't help that Cummins, then 17, bowled 65 overs in the Sheffield Shield final last March against Tasmania and subsequently developed stress-related hot spots in his back. He has been ruled out of this month's Australia A tour of Zimbabwe but will begin bowling soon in preparation for the summer.
Cricket NSW chief executive Dave Gilbert yesterday conceded that his state must take special care of a special talent who can bowl at 145km/h."The challenge for all of us is that we look after him and keep him on the paddock," Gilbert told the Daily Telegraph. "We all look back and cringe with the way in which we did that in the Shield final. For him to bowl 65 overs in the Shield final was wrong and we certainly learnt from that. That sort of situation will never happen again."
Akhila Ranganna is assistant editor (Audio) at ESPNcricinfo