Reflecting on the beginnings of his own Test career, Pat Cummins has vowed to support Cameron Green as the allrounder’s exile looks set to continue into the summer.
In 2020, the 21-year-old Green broke Australia’s 693-day drought of Test debutants by earning a maiden baggy green, a testament to the enormous potential national selectors saw in him.
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The rangy West Australian was a mainstay of the XI until this year’s third Ashes Test, when he was dropped for the first time after a middling start to the tour of England.
His replacement Mitch Marsh blasted a century on his return, and while Green made it back for the fourth Test, when Australia played two allrounders he was again overlooked for the fifth.
Marsh went on to post two more hundreds in the triumphant ODI World Cup and looks to have cemented his place as Australia’s preferred all-rounder for the first Test against Pakistan from Thursday.
Ahead of day one at Perth’s Optus Stadium, coach Andrew McDonald has forecast a similar line-up to that fielded in the fifth Ashes Test.
A fit Nathan Lyon is expected to come in for fellow spinner Todd Murphy as the only change.
That spells bad news for Green, a member of the 14-man extended squad, who had limited opportunities to impress in the Prime Minister’s XI match curtailed by rain last week.
Australian captain Cummins knows all too well of the challenges that come with making a Test debut as the supposed next big thing.
At 18, the paceman became Australia’s youngest Test debutant since 1953 when he earned a maiden cap in 2011 but needed to wait until 2017 for a second opportunity.
“The tough thing about Greeny is, and (there’s) probably some comparisons to me, you’re learning your craft on the biggest stage,” Cummins said at Fox Cricket’s launch of the summer.
“Playing international cricket at a really young age is a privilege but it also does mean you’re making your mistakes and failures in front of a really big audience when other guys your age might be doing it at domestic cricket or grade cricket.”
Cummins credited the support of senior players for keeping him hungry as a young player on the fringes of the Test side.
He saw a role for himself and his teammates in mentoring both Green and back-up paceman Lance Morris on the path to national selection.
“Some of these senior guys who had been touring forever really put their arms around me and looked after me as a young player,” Cummins said.
“Mike Hussey was awesome for me, Shane Watson.
“Hopefully some of the experienced guys in our team can do the same … whether it’s on game day, talking through some of our plans around training sessions or touring, offering little tidbits where we can.”
Cummins lauded chief selector George Bailey for his hands-on approach to managing the players on the edge of the team
“I remember a couple of old coaches saying that the playing XI will always kind of sort themselves out, (but) it’s the guys on the fringes that are the hardest to manage because they’ve got obvious disappointment,” he said.
“But I think the way George has managed that over the years has been brilliant.”
