Cummins holds out Cup hopes with IPL payday uncertain

Pat Cummins is holding out hope his monster Indian Premier League payday will materialise, but the world's leading fast bowler has his sights firmly set on this year's T20 World Cup.

An intense 18 months of continuous cricket for the in-demand Cummins has been brought to a standstill due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with his record IPL deal (worth more than $AUD 3million) with the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on hold.

IPL officials are considering alternate dates for the lucrative tournament that would have begun this week, with reports in the Indian media this week even suggesting it could be held in October-November if the T20 World Cup in Australia is postponed.

The International Cricket Council nor Cricket Australia have given no indication of that happening.

Travel bans are in place both in India (until at least April 14) and Australia (indefinitely) and Cummins said "absolutely no dates or windows have been spoken about" yet.

"Everything is changing, literally every single day," Cummins told reporters via videoconference on Friday. "The last I spoke to (KKR team officials), they said they’re still really confident and hopeful it (the IPL) will be on at some stage.

"They obviously haven’t cancelled it or anything like that yet. It’s still a bit of a holding pattern, so we’re in contact with our teams every few days.

"Obviously everyone is still really keen for it to go ahead, but the priority is to minimise risk of (the virus) spreading. It’s going to be pretty tight, I think the (Indian) travel ban is in place until April 14 so I don’t expect anything too soon to happen."

Cummins has spent recent weeks with his Yorkshire-born fiancée Becky at a rural property south of Sydney and has kept in close contact with her family in the United Kingdom where restrictions on daily life are even more severe than in Australia.

England's World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan this week flagged the possibility of internationals being played at empty stadiums ahead of Australia’s scheduled tour in June, but Cummins is resigned to the possibility of no international cricket being played at all in the coming months.

"I know no call has been made on (the England tour) either way, but I guess unless things improve, I can’t really see many tournaments going on anywhere in the world for a little while," he said.

The 26-year-old is also open to the possibility of Australian players being forced to take pay cuts, pointing out that the players pushed for a share of overall cricket revenue (as opposed to receiving a fixed amount per season) during the last pay deal negotiations in 2017.

But he remains hopeful the T20 World Cup, to be played in Australia for the first time, can go ahead as planned having been a squad member when Michael Clarke's side lifted the ODI World Cup silverware in 2015 at the MCG.

"The T20 World Cup is something we've spoken about for the best part of two or three years.," said Cummins.

"The ODI World Cup in 2015, that was absolutely a career highlight for me and I wasn't even playing. I'd love to see that go ahead.

"That's the big tournament this year for international cricket.

"I'd love for that to happen in a perfect world and if I was to be really greedy, I'd love for the IPL to happen … (and) Test cricket, that's the pinnacle of cricket.

"Hopefully we can play as much of that as possible but there's so many more much bigger things at play."

While Cummins himself wishes he was still playing, Cricket Australia's medical and fitness staff will be sleeping easier knowing their prized asset is getting some deserved rest.

Since his return to Test cricket following a six-year absence in March 2017, no fast bowler has bowled more than Cummins’ 1442.2 overs in all international formats over the ensuing three years.

No bowler has taken more wickets than his 203 scalps either.

Having played gone from last year's back-to-back ODI World Cup and Ashes series straight into a home summer in which he played every possible Test, ODI and T20I, Cummins' rest is seemingly well-timed.

"The preference would be to be over there (in the IPL) playing, but I think the silver lining is we do get a bit of a break," he said.

"We’re lucky in cricket, that it’s right at the end of the season. We’ve played basically our whole season out, except for the last couple of games (against New Zealand) and we’re always looking for those small breaks to refresh.

"But it almost feels like the start of an off-season at the moment, albeit we’re all training by ourselves at home rather than going to the team gym."