The challenge for Phileas Fogg was to get round the world in eighty days. The challenge for Pat Cummins is to get to Perth in seventy-nine. The man himself is upbeat, so confident of overcoming his sore back that he is employing the royal plural:
We’ll be doing everything we can to be right for that, [and] make a few decisions a little bit closer, but [I’m] confident we’ll do the rehab right and give it a good crack….
This far out it’s hard to know, but we’re trying to make sure we’re doing everything right to be right for Perth. It’s a big Ashes series, [it] doesn’t get much bigger, so you’re willing to be aggressive and take a few risks to try to play as much of the Tests as you can.
Still, you’ll notice there are already some qualifications in that. Fast bowlers are often sore, but usually immediately after a match, and it is fifty-two days since Cummins last played - which he acknowledges is out of the ordinary. He stands 192cm, and height correlates with proneness to injury. He is in his thirty-third year, and healing slows as we age. Already, Cummins is effectively conceding that he may not reprise his iron man endurance of 2024-25, when he played all five Border-Gavaskar Trophy Tests.
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