With the St George Illawarra Dragons kicking off pre-season training, the Kangaroos returning from England with the Four Nations trophy safely back in their kit and the cold and wet weather, we could be forgiven for thinking it’s the football season on the way.
There’s also the AFL draft in Sydney and the Wallabies gearing up to play the Barbarians at Twickenham.
Of course, before all the round ball followers crack up, it is the soccer season in the A-League and the Brisbane Roar will be attempting to set a new unbeaten record for any football code in Australia.
So it’s football, football, football, football of all codes in the season that never seems to end. When too much football is never enough.
For those who can’t get enough, there is soccer/football from throughout the world and American football/gridiron is in full swing in the United States.
Okay, so that’s football.
However, a quick glance at the calendar shows we’re a week away from summer. Forget about the weather outside. The low temperature and rain.
Summer Down Under means - cricket.
What a way to whet the appetite for the summer of cricket with Australia’s courageous win in the second Test against South Africa in Johannesburg to square the two-game series.
Which brings us to the youngster Patrick Cummins and elder statesman Ricky Ponting.
When Australia arrived in South Africa there was plenty of speculation that Cummins would become the second youngest cricketer to represent Australia behind Ian Craig in 1953.
He didn’t get the nod for the first Test but ironically he received his baggy green from none other than former captain and one of the best batsmen of all time, Ponting.
The way he ripped in with the ball and the thoughtful way he delivered against one of the strongest batting lineups in world cricket showed that, at only 18, Cummins is a special talent.
Besides his raw pace, accuracy and intelligence as a genuine fast bowler, he is also a top fielder and reliable lower order batsman.
You don’t get much more reliable than to come in under extreme pressure and crack the winning runs.
Straight out of Boys Own Annual. Teenager skittles star batting lineup, fields like a demon, hits winning runs with a boundary and adjudged Man of the Match in debut Test.
Cummins may not have received that chance to clobber the winning runs had Ponting not played such a crucial innings to help put Australia in that position. And let’s not forget the lower order contributions from Brad Haddin and Mitchell Johnson with the bat.
Ponting’s partnership with the supremely talented Usman Khawaja from such a precarious position with both opening bats Shane Watson and Phil Hughes gone cheaply was a perfect example of experience and youth combining to steady the ship, pilot it through troubled waters. Incidentally there certainly is something to admire and look forward to from Khawaja.
Calls for Ponting to be punted have been loud and long from some quarters. They may be a bit premature.
Don’t forget that Ponting copped some superb deliveries to dismiss him early in earlier innings and that the South African pace trio of Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and a revelation to at least one Australian cricket follower, Vernon Philander, is as good as it gets right now.
While Cummins is a certainty to play this Australian summer of cricket, it could be folly to leave Ponting out of the Test team to play against New Zealand and India on home turf.
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