SYDNEY
\nAustralia captain Pat Cummins wants to play international cricket for another five years but has already experienced one period of burnout which forced him to reassess the balance in his life.
\nThe 30-year-old paceman played his first Test as a teenager in South Africa in 2011 but did not play his second until six years later as he was nursed through a series of injuries.
\nOnce he did return to Australia\u2019s colours, however, he quickly discovered the almost unrelenting demands on the top modern players.
\n\u201cCricket\u2019s basically 12 months of the year,\u201d he told former England footballer Rio Ferdinand on the Get Real with Rio vodcast. \u201cThere\u2019s always a cricket game going on somewhere, and I played non-stop for a year or two. This is about four or five years ago, I kind of just came back from injuries.
\n\u201cAnd I was just spent, like burnt out, and I just remember thinking, \u2018Jeez, I\u2019m 25 here but I want to do this until I\u2019m 35. I\u2019ve got to find a way to balance all these different things\u2019.\u201d
\nCummins\u2019s last action came on Australia\u2019s tour of India earlier this year, which he left early to return home to be with his terminally ill mother.
\nHe said her death from breast cancer in March was still \u201cpretty raw\u201d but he was glad he had been able to spend time with her and his family at the end.
\n\u201cI 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\u2019s been quite good. Lots of memories,\u201d he said. \u201cBut in terms of the grief I guess we\u2019ll keep working through that.\u201d
\nNext up for Cummins and Australia is the World Test Championship final against India in London next month followed quickly by the five-Test Ashes series against England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SYDNEY Australia captain Pat Cummins wants to play international cricket for another five years but has already experienced one period of burnout which forced him to reassess the balance in his life. The 30-year-old paceman played his first Test as a teenager in South Africa in 2011 but did not play his second until six […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-330698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n