- In full:
- Patrick James Cummins
- Born:
- May 8, 1993, Westmead, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia (age 33)
Pat Cummins
When was Pat Cummins born?
What are some of Pat Cummins’s achievements as captain of the Australian cricket team?
What injury challenges did Pat Cummins face early in his career?
Which franchise teams has Pat Cummins played for in the Indian Premier League?
Does Pat Cummins have all of his fingers?
News •
Pat Cummins (born May 8, 1993, Westmead, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) is an Australian cricketer who plays as a right-arm fast bowler and right-handed batter and has taken more than 500 international wickets. He is considered one of the game’s best contemporary pace bowlers. In late 2021 he was appointed captain of the Australian men’s Test team and has led the men’s One Day International (ODI) team since late 2022. In 2023 he captained Australia to the World Test Championship title as well as the men’s ODI Cricket World Cup trophy, defeating India in both finals. He was also part of the Australian squads that won the 2015 Men’s ODI Cricket World Cup and the 2021 Men’s Twenty20 International (T20I) World Cup. He has played for multiple Indian Premier League (IPL) teams, such as the Kolkata Knight Riders, the Delhi Daredevils (now Delhi Capitals), and the Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Family and early career
Pat Cummins lost the top centimeter of his right middle finger at the age of three or four after it was caught between a closing door and the doorjamb.
Cummins was born to Peter and Maria Cummins and has two brothers and two sisters. He is married to Rebecca Jane (Becky) Cummins (née Boston). The couple met in 2013 and married in 2022. They have two children, a son born in 2021 and a daughter born in 2025.
Cummins played junior cricket at the Glenbrook-Blaxland Cricket Club west of Sydney and first-grade cricket for Penrith. By 2010 he was representing the New South Wales state squad at the national under-17 championships and played under-19 cricket the same year.
In January 2011 Cummins finished as the joint top wicket taker in the T20 Big Bash (now Big Bash League; Australia’s franchise T20 tournament). He made his List A (domestic limited-overs cricket) debut in a wicketless performance against Queensland in February 2011 and his first-class (multiday cricket) debut in a match against Tasmania a month later.
In June 2011 Cummins became the youngest player to be granted a Cricket Australia contract to play for the national team since the system was introduced in 1998.
International cricket debut and injury struggles
Cummins made his international cricket debut with a three-wicket haul against South Africa in a T20I in October 2011. A week later he took three wickets on his ODI debut against the same team. He was named in the squad for the subsequent Test series against South Africa but did not play in the first match. After Australia’s shocking defeat in the first Test, Cummins made his Test debut in the second match of the series in November 2011, becoming the second youngest debutant for Australia in that format at the time. He dismissed South African batter Hashim Amla for his first Test wicket, and he led the bowling attack in the second innings with six wickets to get Australia the win. He was named the Player of the Match.
It was later revealed that Cummins’s stunning performance was delivered while nursing a serious heel injury. A series of injuries, particularly stress fractures in his lower back, followed, and Cummins did not play Test cricket for six years. He continued to play cricket in the shorter formats between injuries, including franchise cricket. During this phase Cummins worked on his technique with Australian pace bowling legend Dennis Lillee.
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Return to international cricket
Cummins was included in Australia’s 2015 ODI World Cup-winning squad but played only two matches, taking a total of five wickets, and was not included in the team during the knockout phase. Picked for the following tour of England, Cummins played no Tests and then suffered another back injury that ruled him out of another home summer. He was recalled to the Test side for Australia’s 2017 tour of India and played the third and fourth matches of the series, bowling 77 overs and taking eight wickets. He finally played in a home summer Test season in 2017–18, emerging as the top wicket taker of the Ashes series against England with 23 wickets in five Tests, helping Australia win 4–0. In 2018–19 he was Australia’s best-performing pace bowler, when India won a bilateral Test series in Australia for the first time since the inaugural contest between the two countries in 1947–48.
In January 2019 Cummins was named joint vice-captain of the Test side along with Travis Head. The next month he won the Allan Border Medal, annually awarded to Australia’s most outstanding male cricketer, and finished at the top of the International Cricket Council (ICC) bowling rankings. He was the first Australian bowler to top the list since Glenn McGrath in 2006.
Cummins was again the top wicket taker in the 2019 Ashes series in England, with 29 wickets in a series drawn 2–2. When he took his 100th wicket while playing in his 21st Test, he became the fastest Australian pace bowler to reach the milestone since World War II. Cummins would go on to be named ICC Men’s Test Cricketer of the Year for 2019 and included in the ICC Test Team of the Year.
Cummins was part of the Australian squad that won the T20I World Cup in 2021 under the captaincy of Aaron Finch.
Captaincy
In November 2021 Cummins was named Australia’s 47th Test captain after the incumbent, Tim Paine, resigned because of a sexting scandal. Cummins was the first Australian fast bowler to hold the role on a full-time basis and was appointed less than three weeks before the home Ashes series. He topped the bowling charts again with 21 wickets in another 4–0 rout of England. In 2022 Cummins led Australia on the team’s first tour of Pakistan in 24 years with a chart-topping 12 wickets in a 1–0 Test series win. In October that year he took over the ODI captaincy from the retiring Aaron Finch.
Cummins led Australia to the final of the second ICC World Test Championship in June 2023, where they beat India to win the title. He then led Australia to a 2–2 draw in the 2023 Ashes series in England and to a sixth ODI World Cup trophy after beating India in the final. Cummins was commended by several cricket pundits for his tactics during the match and for his ability to take wickets at critical moments, including that of star Indian batter Virat Kohli.
Cummins was part of the Australian team for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 and became only the second cricketer, after Pakistan pace bowler Wasim Akram, to take hat tricks (dismissing three opposing batters with three consecutive deliveries) in back-to-back matches. Cummins achieved this feat in matches against Bangladesh and Afghanistan, respectively. Between December 2024 and January 2025 Cummins led Australia to reclaim the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, a biennial bilateral Test series against India, ending a streak of four straight losses.
Cummins took his 300th Test wicket during Australia’s 2025 ICC World Test Championship final loss against South Africa in June 2025. During England’s Ashes tour of Australia held between November 2025 and January 2026, Cummins sat out the first two matches because of injury. He returned to the playing 11 for the third Test to help his country clinch the series and retain the trophy for the fourth time.
Franchise cricket
Cummins played for the Perth Scorchers in the Big Bash League for the 2013–14 season. He then joined the Sydney Thunder from 2014 to 2019 but played infrequently as he dealt with recurring injuries. In 2023 Cummins rejoined the Sydney Thunder as a marquee supplementary player. In 2024 he signed a four-year contract with the San Francisco Unicorns, one of the teams in the U.S.-based Major League Cricket T20 tournament.
Cummins first appeared in the IPL for the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in 2014 and 2015, playing a handful of games. He did not feature in the 2016 IPL tournament and moved to the Delhi Daredevils (now Delhi Capitals) in 2017, taking 15 wickets during the tournament. After missing out again in 2018 and 2019, Cummins was signed by KKR for the second time, for $2.17 million, ahead of IPL 2020. He played with the squad for three seasons, and in 2022 he equaled the then-record for scoring the fastest 50 in the IPL. Cummins took a break from IPL 2023 to focus on Test and ODI cricket. Ahead of IPL 2024 Cummins signed with the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) for $2.47 million and was chosen as captain. He led SRH to the final of IPL 2024, where the team lost to KKR. He was retained by SRH and continued to lead the side for the 2025 and 2026 IPL seasons.