Pat Cummins on mother’s passing: ‘It’s still pretty raw…’

Pat Cummins spoke for the first time since leaving Australia’s tour of India in February to be with his mother who was diagnosed with breast cancer. Maria Cummins later passed away in March after prolonged illness.

The Australia Test and ODI captain said he was still processing the loss of his mother. Cummins had returned to Sydney mid-series to be by the side of his ailing mother.

“It’s still pretty raw at the moment but the last few months been luckily enough to spend loads of time with mum,” he told former England footballer Rio Ferdinand as part of ‘WeAre8’s ‘Get Real with Rio’. “But [also] us as kids, and [with] dad, and just sharing all those memories together.

“I think it hits home the kind of person you want to be, the kind of father you want to be. So from that side, it’s been quite good. Lots of memories. But in terms of the grief I guess we’ll keep working through that.”

The Aussie seamer added he wanted to play until he was 35 but needed to manage the workload better to achieve that. It also included adjustic mentally to the long cricket calendar.

“Cricket’s basically 12 months of the year; there’s always a cricket game going on somewhere, and I played non-stop for a year or two,” said Cummins.

“This is about four or five years ago, [when] I kind of just came back from injuries. And I was just spent, like burnout and I just remember thinking ‘geez I’m 25 here but I want to do this until I’m 35’ I’ve got to find a way to balance all these different things,” he said referring to 2017 season when he returned to Australian team after almost six years out with injury.

One of those off-the-field endeavours has been Cricket for Climate, a foundation he set up to reduce the sport’s carbon footprint. The 30-year-old expressed desire to take it to countries like India and England.

Cummins will return to lead Australia in the World Test Championship final against India starting 7 June at The Oval. The Ashes gets underway less than 10 days later on 16 June.

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