Benaud backs Cummins to step up to Sheffield Shield
Andrew Wu
February 4, 2011
FORMER national selector John Benaud believes teenage bowling sensation Patrick Cummins should be given the chance this season to make the leap to first-class cricket after his stunning performances in the Twenty20 Big Bash.
Benaud, the cricket manager at Cummins's club Penrith, said players of the youngster's talent should not be held back from climbing through the grades, as they invariably delivered with every rise in class.
''I never think that it's too early for these blokes. My philosophy has always been that if you've got a young bloke who is rising to every challenge that you're presenting with you should keep going with him unless there's circumstances preventing them,'' said Benaud, one of the brains behind Australia's renaissance in the 1980s.
''He's the sort of kid you keep picking until he shows you a sign that he's had enough for a while. He's a class act.''
''NSW's fast bowling stocks are pretty solid at the moment. I know they've got injuries but from what we've seen so far he would be quite able to step up to the class of Sheffield Shield but the four-day game is a much bigger challenge than the four-over spell in the Twenty20. He's going to have to rely on stamina a bit more.''
Cummins, 17, has burst to prominence in the past month, consistently reaching speeds in the mid-140km/h and is the competition's leading wicket-taker in the Big Bash, with 11 victims at 11.54.
Blues captain Stuart Clark said the risk of injury, which was ''very high'' at 17, was the chief concern preventing Cummins from collecting a Shield cap this season.
''The biggest thing we've got to take into concern is he's 17 and we don't want to go through the stage where we play him in every game and we find that in about three games' time he's injured and is out for six months,'' Clark said.
''We just need to be very careful that we don't burn him out at 17. We keep him ticking over, we keep him around the group and he maybe plays the odd Shield game and we just see how it is.''
Cummins, whose goal at the start of the season was to hold down a place in Penrith's first XI, is still coming to terms with his meteoric rise.
He paid tribute to new-ball partner Clark, whom he idolised earlier in his teens, for the support the veteran provided out on the field.
''As a captain and leader he's got ideas and backs all his players 100 per cent,'' Cummins said. ''To be bowling at the same with him, he goes for no runs and builds pressure on the batsmen and takes the pressure off me down the other end. He's a great bowler to bowl with.
''A couple of the overs against Queensland when the game was tough he was giving me ideas of what to bowl and things like that. He's definitely hands on when he needs to be. He just gave me plans like bounce this guy or yorker and things like that.''
But what made Cummins such an exciting prospect, Clark said, was his ability to turn ideas on the whiteboard into results on the scoreboard.
''That's the best thing about him, he can execute those skills when I think that's the right thing he should do,'' Clark said. ''I don't talk to him about his technique and stuff because it's working fine at the moment.''
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket...ep-up-to-sheffield-shield-20110203-1afin.html
