Lee urges Cummins to rediscover speed

Former Australia speedster Brett Lee has imparted some advice to fellow quick Pat Cummins, urging him to aim to bowl with the same express pace he possessed before a succession of injuries curtailed his burgeoning career.

After blowing out the cobwebs on a preseason camp with New South Wales, Cummins made an inconspicuous return to competitive cricket on the weekend, snagging 2-32 from eight overs and hitting a quickfire 69 for his Sydney club side Penrith.

It comes after a cruel run of injury setbacks in recent years for the right-armer, who burst onto the international scene in 2011 when he picked up seven wickets on Test debut against South Africa as a raw 18-year-old.

And while his New South Wales bowling coach Geoff Lawson suggested last month that Cummins may not bowl with same lethal pace he displayed in his maiden Test, Lee believes that velocity is the major weapon in Cummins’ armoury.

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“Pat has the X-Factor few pace bowlers have – he can bowl over 150 kph!” the 39-year-old wrote in a column for Sportsta.

“Anyone can bowl all day if they limit themselves to 130 kph but Pat’s pace separates him from the pack. He just needs to go out there and have that burning desire to bend his back.

“There’s no point treading on egg shells – let it rip! The beauty about Pat is I know he has that mindset.”

Cummins’ return to top-flight cricket was pushed back over the off-season, after he was originally earmarked to line up for Australia A in the Winter ‘A’ series in Queensland.

Although he wasn’t selected in the Blues’ 14-man squad for the upcoming Matador BBQs One-Day Cup, the speedster is on track to feature for NSW at some stage in the tournament.

Lee, who played 76 Tests and 221 ODIs for Australia, suffered stress fractures in his back as a teenager before developing into one of Australia’s most durable fast bowlers during the late 1990s and 2000s.

And the Wollongong-born paceman says experiencing pain is part-and-parcel of bowling fast and Cummins must put worries of reinjuring himself aside in his return.

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“There’s reluctance from some athletes to not push the boundaries quite like they did before their injury because of the fear it might flare up again,” Lee wrote.

“I’ve seen some bowlers – blokes who could launch rockets – develop a fear of being re-injured and there’s a sense they want to wrap themselves in cotton wool.

“The more you sweat about (reinjuring yourself), the more likely you are to finish the day needing a doctor’s appointment.

“It’s also important to realise how easy it is (for medical staff) to rule a bowler out because the reality is there’s so much stress going through a fast bowler’s back someone will ALWAYS be able to find a reason to stand a bowler down.

“For instance, if I was to have a bone scan tomorrow I’d light up like a Christmas tree even though I haven’t experienced any back pain since I was 24.”

It’s now been over a year since Cummins last donned the green and gold, his last appearance coming in Australia’s ODI series against England following the 2015 Ashes.

The 23-year-old has excelled in the 33 international limited-overs matches he’s played to date and was part of Australia’s 2015 ODI World Cup-winning squad.

Considering the rigours of white-ball cricket – in which he’s required to bowl a maximum of 10 overs – are considerably less onerous than those of the longest format, it could be tempting for Cummins to only target a comeback in the shorter forms for now.

But he insists a return to the Baggy Green remains his ultimate aim.

"The long-term goal is to still play a lot of Test cricket," he told cricket.com.au earlier this month.

"Obviously getting back to playing first-class cricket is the short-term goal, and even shorter is the Matador Cup and a couple of one-dayers (for Australia) this summer.

"At the moment it's about getting comfortable in my body, finding form and then building up slowly.

"And then one day I'd love to be out there in the Baggy Green again."