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Patrick Cummins: The loneliest Baggy Green

A teenage prodigy, Pat Cummins has taken another step towards his elusive dream of again playing Test cricket

Regardless of his level of involvement in the forthcoming Ashes, Patrick James Cummins’ selection in place of the retired Ryan Harris is a momentous one.

Quick Single: Ryan Harris announces shock retirement

For both the man himself, and Australian cricket.

Harris, a deceptively skilful warhorse who was the match of any of Australia’s great fast bowlers when his body didn’t betray him, played his first Test as a 30-year-old in 2010.

Ryan Harris: The story of his debut in his own words

Cummins was 16 at the time, though incredibly he’d be donning the Baggy Green himself the following year as Australia’s second-youngest Test debutant.

Topping the speed gun at close to 150kph and swinging the ball both ways, the teenager ripped through a shell-shocked South Africa in the deciding Test in Johannesburg, taking six wickets and topping it off with the winning runs as the tourists levelled the two-match series.

Image Id: ~/media/06BD014AADCE42E689B346851E03BBE9

Cummins was man of the match in his only Test // Getty Images 

For many Australians, footage of Cummins ripping out the likes of Jacques Kallis and AB de Villiers was the first they’d seen of the precociously talented youngster.

Kallis's words afterward were prescient. 

"There's a lot to work with," he said of the young quick. "If he stays injury free, he'll have a big career ahead of him.”

While Cummins and Harris wore vastly different paths to the top, there are similarities in what’s happened since.

On the surface, it may not appear as such: Harris has eked out 27 Tests from his creaking body in five years; Cummins’ fragilities - namely back and foot stress fractures, among other ailments - have prevented him from playing any.

But injury has been the underlying factor in how the pair have been managed in that time.

Harris, at the back end of his career and with only so much time to deliver for his country, pushed his body to the limits (and seemingly beyond), desperate as he was to get every opportunity to play for his country.

Cummins, on the other hand, has largely been wrapped in cotton wool.

Despite debuting in the Test side almost four years ago, the 22-year-old has played just six first-class matches, as back issues were overcome and a remodelled action was fine-tuned behind the scenes at the Bupa National Cricket Centre.

He made his return to the national scene through limited overs cricket. First for Australia A in a Darwin-based tri-series against India and South Africa 'A' teams.

In 12 ODIs (including two in the World Cup, in which he took five wickets) and 14 T20 internationals, the right-armer from Sydney’s extreme west has performed solidly without ever recapturing the magic that had commentators gushing and experts predicting a decade-long career in Baggy Green.

"You'll see Pat Cummins play limited-overs cricket ... for the next year or two," Bupa Support Team doctor Peter Brukner told ABC Radio in December 2013.

"Every time we've tried to play red-ball cricket with Cummins, he's broken down.

"There's no point bashing your head against a brick wall anymore.

"That's the sort of policy that's being mooted at the moment.

"We ease him back into cricket, keep the loads fairly low, get the most out of him for our country."

True to Brukner’s word, Cummins hasn’t played first-class cricket since mid-2013, yet now here he is, pulled out of a planned trip to India with Australia A and thrust headfirst into cricket’s most storied Test series.

Throughout the intervening period, he has made no secret of the fact that his ambition lies in the five-day game.

"I've been back bowling for over 12 months and haven't had any hiccups," Cummins said in January, though there was a side strain during the World Cup that briefly slowed him down.

"I know that I can play cricket and I'm no more vulnerable to injuries than anyone else.

"I can worry about trying to bowl well, rather than having to worry about anything else.

"The goal for this summer and the last 12 months was always to play white-ball cricket and get confidence in my body.

"After the World Cup ... I want to get back to red-ball (cricket) really quickly."

Given the quality of the performances put up by Australia’s pace trio of Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood in the Caribbean, as well as the continued presence of Victorian Peter Siddle, Cummins is an outsider to add to that lone Test cap throughout this Ashes series, but if it happens, it will be simply another chapter in what is already an incredible story.