How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - Pat Cummins - 'My mother’s death taught me cricket isn’t as important as family'

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

Considered by many as one of the greatest cricketers of all time, the Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins is extremely well-placed to tell me how he wins but also how he’s been shaped by losing. But his losses have not been limited to the cricket pitch. In an extremely moving exchange, he tells me about his mother dying from cancer and how her death put the rest of his life into perspective. We talk about the continuing juggle of family commitments with the demands made of an elite sportsman and the practical strategies he’s found to say no to people (he gives us his top three tips and, trust me, they are SO helpful). This is someone for whom resilience and tenacity are key - after becoming a professional cricketer at 18, he spent the next 5 years plagued with injuries and played less cricket than he’d ever done in his life. Pat recounts how he kept going and what he loves to do when he’s not on the pitch (it involves fixing fences slowly…and quite badly). Have something to share of your own? I'd love to hear from you! Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Manager: Lily Hambly Studio and Mix Engineer: Gulliver Tickell and Josh Gibbs Senior Producer: Selina Ream Executive Producer: Carly Maile Head of Marketing: Kieran Lancini How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and asks about failures rather than successes. You can join me for more How To Fail in our subscriber series, Failing With Friends. Every week I get some extra time with my guests to answer your failures and questions. This week you'll hear more from Pat Cummins. This is the direction I didn't expect you to go in, but I'm here for it. And we'd love to hear from you. Just follow the link in the podcast notes. Pat Cummins is the captain of the Australian Men's National Cricket Team and widely regarded as one of the all-time greatest fast bowlers. He grew

up in Mount Riverview, West of Sydney with two brothers and two sisters playing cricket in his backyard and he made his test debut at the age of 18. To say he is popular is to underplay the reality. Cummins is beloved in his native Australia and an object of obsession for cricketing fans across the world who admire not only his sporting skill but his social conscience and his leadership. Australian men's cricket captains have historically had a reputation for unreconstructed blokeishness, but Cummins, who is a father of one and who has helped set up a foundation to reduce cricket's carbon footprint, breaks the mould. It has made him the target of criticism, but also

of adulation. And throughout it all, his sporting prowess remains beyond dispute. 2024 has already been a year of unprecedented success. Cummins led Australia to victory in the World Test Championship and in the World Cup, retaining the ashes. Our greatest glory is not in never failing, he has said, but in rising every time we fall. Pat Cummins, welcome to How To Fail. Thanks so much for having me. I don't know really where to go from that. I think that's, it's all downhill from here. So I might just leave.

Did I get it right? Did I get the facts right? I think most of them, the quote, my quote at the end, I've never heard that. Oh really? So I'll take it. That's so funny. I was like, that is so lyrical. Yeah, I was going to say that sounds really nice, but I don't think that. Oh really? So I'll take it. That's so funny. I was like, that is so lyrical. Yeah, I was going to say that sounds really nice, but I don't think that's me.

Okay. Maybe it's Nelson Mandela and it's been wrongly attributed to you. Well I would claim it. It's online it says it's you. I'll take it. I have spoken to many people over the last few weeks who are never impressed by any guest I have on How To Fail, who have become giddy when I have dropped your name. What is that like for you?

Because you strike me as really quite a humble, rooted person, but to have this sort of adulation, what does that feel like? I mean, it's not every day. I feel like most of my life's quite normal. But no, it's still a little bit strange, you know, at times, because I just feel like I'm quite normal. My job's going and bowling a cricket ball with a group of my really close mates that I've known for years and years. So yeah, sometimes I do forget that there's lots of other people that follow cricket and sport and the players really closely like I did when I was a child. But honestly, I don't really think about that side of it too much. Talk to me about failure within cricket.

How do you define failure within that sporting context? If you win 60% of the time, you're one of the all-time great cricket teams. So even if you're going really well, you're probably going to lose 40% of your games. So you've kind of become desensitized a little bit to failing. You know, we always try to look at some other kind of metrics and ways we're going. And, and we try and define how we want to play, how I want to play personally. And I kind of judge myself against that. So try and take the win and loss out of it. So if I, if I go out and I try really hard, I've prepared well, and it doesn't come off.

For me, that's not really failure. It's if I haven't given myself the best chance to, to go out and win. That is so on brand for everything that I believe and the reason behind this podcast. That as long as you try your hardest and you prepare your best, if you fail, it does not make you a failure. It's actually the true test is in how you respond to it. Absolutely. And, you know, I always think you've got some level of agency on how you want to kind of live and how you want to say in cricket, how you want to play.

So as long as you, you're kind of staying true to that, giving yourself the best chance fronting up every day, you know, the small little failures in between don't really kind of matter in the big picture. As long as you keep rocking up, keep trying to get better. No one's perfect. You're not going to win everything. It's reality that it's going to happen. It's just how you deal with it. You are someone who had to take quite a substantial period of time out because you were played

with injuries. Does that feel like a failure when you're going through it? In some regards, yes. It's funny, I debuted for Australia when I was 18. So, you know, my life up until that had been basically playing cricket for the love of it, but all summers were spent playing cricket. And then I became a professional cricketer. And then for the next five or six years, I was basically injured. And it was kind of this weird stage where I was now a professional full-time cricketer, but I'd actually played, I was playing less cricket than I ever had in my life

and it felt like my body was was failing me and there wasn't really much I could do about it. Even my particular injuries were bone stress related injuries which it basically just looking at a clock you you're out for 12 or 16 weeks it's not like you can go to the gym and try and rehab it every single day. It's, you literally just waiting for the clock to keep ticking over to your bones healed. So my way of dealing with that was to try and find other interests outside of that. Understand that there wasn't much I could do in terms of speeding up that process, but what are some of the things in my control and, you know, doing some strength work, working on my batting, going and getting a university degree, just trying to, I guess, fill other buckets whilst I was having a little bit of a break from cricket.

And when was the first time you remember playing cricket and loving it and thinking, oh, this is me? Oh, forever. Yeah, I've got two older brothers who were both cricket mad. So yeah, my earliest memories are chasing them around in the backyard. Yeah, I was that annoying kid who was turning up to my older brother's cricket games, hoping someone was sick and didn't turn up so I could go on the field for a couple of hours. And I've just always loved it. Do they take the credit now, your two older brothers, for having trained you to become one of the greatest cricketers of all time? I'll give Tim credit for this because he's actually not funny, but this was funny for him.

It was, I think, in my debut match, I was 18 and a couple of TV crews went and knocked on my family home and he opened the door and he said to the TV crew, I can't believe what all the fuss is about Pat, you still never won a backyard cricket game against me. So he's very much maintained that line the last few years. Do you still play cricket with your brothers? Probably once a year around Christmas, you know, we try and play in the backyard, but yeah, it's a little bit harder these days. Did your sisters ever play? My young sister Kara played for one or two years, but they were more netball, yeah, really sporty family. Everyone kind of had their different sports, but the boys were mainly cricket. And one of your sisters did something when you were a child that resulted in the loss

of the top of one of your fingers. I was four years old. I'd just been to preschool for the day and I had five lollipops. So one for me, one for each of my siblings. And I was handing them out. Laura was in the bathroom. So I opened the door just to crank it open a little bit, and was waving the lollipop through the bathroom door for some reason, and Laura came and slammed the door. Top of my middle finger came straight off,

so the top kind of quarter of my middle finger straight onto the ground, bones sticking out, everything. So I was obviously screaming around the house straight to hospital and it was too small apparently to sew back on so my middle finger on my bowling hand my right hand is yeah about a quarter shorter than it traditionally should be. It's so interesting do you think that that is part of what makes your bowling unique? Perhaps I think it's a disadvantage but I but it's all I've known. I was four years old,

so I know nothing different. And tell me a bit about your childhood and what that was like. You grew up surrounded by countryside and a feeling of freedom. We were kind of outskirts of Sydney, so not totally country, but we backed onto Bush. We had a big backyard, kind of in the Blue Mountains, so now west of Sydney. Yeah, five kids, mum and dad, seven of us in the house, always playing cricket in summer. Then Aussie Open come on, we'd play tennis, try golf, you know, football, soccer, every sport you can imagine. Everything had to be a competition. I had a wonderful childhood.

So you described that you've got two older brothers and two younger sisters. So is that right? One older, one younger sister. Okay. So you're sort of in the middle of the five And I wonder what the experience of becoming a leader has been like for you, because as the cricketing captain, you are looked to as the leader. Has that been a difficult journey? I think for most of my life, I've always been the youngest person in the room. I never really felt like a leader at all, but I suppose it's pretty good preparation in terms of always looking up to people who are a little bit more mature, a little bit maybe more worldly

and kind of sitting quietly in the corners maybe and sometimes thinking, okay, I totally agree with that. I don't agree with that. I'll do it slightly differently. Whatever it is, I feel like I've been really fortunate to be in a position where I've spent loads of time with amazing, wonderful people, you know, particularly in the cricketing world. ALICE Do you find it easy to say when you don't agree with something or someone? MATT I don't think it comes naturally. I'd say my first instance is always trying to gain a little bit of understanding. But if it's something I'm quite strongly believe in, then happy to say no, especially now being a leadership role as

captain. It's kind of up to me to help shape that environment. Do you think that that certainty has partly come about because as I mentioned in the introduction, there are lots of people with a lot of opinions about you, particularly in Australia in the right-wing press. So do you have to be increasingly sure of who you are away from the outside noise? Totally. Above everything else, that's the most important thing in, pretty much in life. You can have some level of surety on who you are and then have a wonderful group of people around you. Everything else becomes a lot more insignificant. With each year I'm caring less and less about the people that I know firsthand.

I don't know how much we're allowed to talk about the book that you're writing. I think we are. Okay, because that's how we met. Yes. So, Pat was kind enough, it was a deeply flattering email to get, to say that he wanted to interview me for his new book, specifically about failure. And so we originally met over Zoom. What's the book about?

So the book's called Test It. It's coming out in a few months. Such a good title. Yeah, I didn't come up with it. And I've always loved books that. Kind of the wisdom's been hard earned, you know, real life stories of people who have done wonderful things and they're kind of sharing their successes or failures after the event and what they'll do if they had the same situation

again. And in theory, everything looks quite clean, but it's those real life experience where people are skinning the game where I find the most interesting stories come from. So yeah, I thought it'd be interesting to write a book where I went and interviewed a dozen or so people I found had amazing stories to tell. And yes, you know, it's just been awesome to hear some of the stories, some of the lessons learned. It's a, you know, I feel like I've selfishly got a lot more out of this book than perhaps other people will because it's just been wonderful stories and yeah, look forward to being released sometime

this year. I think what comes across loud and clear when you speak is your belief and my belief in the power of listening. You have great respect for other people's stories and I think that that really shapes great leadership as well. So I can't wait for the book. Hope I made the cut. I didn't even ask. I think that that really shapes great leadership as well. So I can't wait for the book. Hope I made the cart. Don't even ask.

I think you're in. Okay. You're in it. Okay. Let's get onto your failures. Your first failure is about time to give to your family because as a cricketer, you're on the road for 10 months a year, aren't you? Yeah.

This has been the biggest hustle, especially in the last, I'd say three or four years. Yeah. We were barely home. So, you know, we're sitting here in, what are we, July and I think I've been home for 50 hours since the late January this year. So we're just always away. Wow. Yeah.

That's tough. Yeah, it's busy. So, um, you know ever since becoming a father So we've got little Albie who was born two and a half years ago It just goes to another level. I think that's the the one I'm always jostling with I feel like I'm a bit better at time management now than I was When I'm home or even when I'm on tour really I try and make it a clear divide of what's kind of work time or cricket time and what's family time. And to be honest, I don't leave much space for much else.

I'm, I'm really deliberate in how I spend my time now, but you know, for a couple of years there, I spent too much time away, which wasn't a lot I could do about it. But even when I was home, I felt like I was, um, yeah, said yes to too many things. I've got a little bit better at saying no, just knowing that time's finite. You say yes to things that sound good in theory, and then you turn up to something,

all you wanna do is be home with your son. I'm getting better at it, it's always a work in progress. Talk to me about how your wife copes with it. As you say, your son Albie was born in October, 2021, and you became the Australian Test Captain that November. So that's a lot of pressure on her. Yeah, she's a champion. No, she's the best. I wouldn't be able to do any of this without Becky. Becky had Albie start of October. And then I actually flew away four days later

across to we had a T20 World Cup and it was still during COVID times so flew straight over, was over there for a month. So Becky's on her own basically. When I came back, we had two weeks isolation, but fortunately Becky and Abi could join me for those two weeks. And that was kind of the light at the end of the tunnel for that month. It was like, we're going to be together for two weeks. We're going to be bunkering down, no distractions, just proper family time and I can help out, you know, basically 24-7. And then about day two into this isolation, I found out I was basically going to become captain of Australia and I felt like I was so not ready for that.

And it was right on the eve of a really important series, an Asha series at home. And again, my mind was just all over the shop and I felt like I wasn't particularly doing fatherhood very well. I wasn't particularly doing my new role as captain well. I was just scattered all over the place. So hopefully, even when we ever have a second child, I'm much more present for those first few months. Did you ever think of saying no to the captaincy? Did that cross your mind? It did.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I felt like my plate was already quite full, especially just being a new father. I have a great life. I love playing cricket at that stage. I was so excited about fatherhood. And I'd just seen the previous few capt know, few captains really go through the wringer. There's parts of the role that's obviously appealing, the esteem of Captain

Australia, but parts of it that didn't really appeal to me too much. In the end, I decided to go for it. But if it wasn't to be, and it didn't work out, I was very comfortable just going about my life. And do you and Becky have a place psychologically that you can go when it feels like you're spending too much time away or maybe she might feel disconnected from you? I think my husband and I have a good shorthand for how to communicate that. Yeah. Are you good at communicating? How do you do it?

You should probably ask Becky. Who's going to get hurt? No, is the answer really. What I try to do more now and we try to do is just that kind of delayed gratification of you know, this is a really busy month or two, but I promise I'm going to be all in for a couple of weeks after this, you know, this tour when I'm going to be away or whatever it is. And I'm really strict in what I say yes and no to now, especially when I'm home or have those windows away from cricket.

Have you put a miniature cricket bat into Albie's hands? Actually, I don't think I have tried a cricket bat. I've tried golf clubs. Yeah, I feel like that's more a sport that I love golf. So then if he wants to play golf, then I'm allowed to play golf. So it's perfect, but he loves throwing balls. He just pings balls around the house all day. Doesn't have much interest in much else. There's another element to this failure,

which is incredibly sad. And I want to preface this by saying, I'm so sorry for your loss. And if at any point you don't want to talk about this, please tell me. And it's about losing your beloved mum and you were on tour in India in 2023 when this was happening. Could you tell us about that?

Yeah, you know, of course, um, you know, I think that's the other layer as well to kind of the end of 2021 and Albie being born was we knew mum didn't have very long. It was probably months more than years. Every time I was going away on a tour, I knew that was time that was finite and it was time that I could be spending with mum. Really, really challenging. I was over in India playing in a test series when mum went into palliative care.

So I flew out to India knowing that I was going to be back on a plane a week or two later, kind of flying back to be with mom. Obviously, I think, you know, mom and dad were really strong with me going. They derived so much joy from sitting together watching me play cricket on TV and representing Australia. So they were adamant that I should go. I think the other layer to it as well was they, you know, Mum particularly was super private person. Dad is as well. They don't want any fuss ever. And the nature of my role is, you know, if I'm starting to miss cricket,

it kind of becomes public pretty quickly. So I felt that tussle as well, I think of just wanting to be a son. But yeah, it was kind of half me that wanted to continue to keep playing, but the other half just wanted to be a son lying at the foot of the bed. Your mum was diagnosed with cancer. Was it breast cancer? Breast cancer, yeah. And how many years ago was that? So mum first got diagnosed in, I think it was about 2005. I was in year seven.

And then the last kind of four or five where it was, yeah, I knew think it was about 2005, I was in year seven. And then the last kind of four or five where it was, yeah, I knew that it was going to be terminal. So all of your teenage years were played out against this backdrop of your mum's illness. I think mum and dad tried to protect it from us. So I remember I was 13 years old and, yeah, mum and dad kind of sat us children down and was like, oh, mom's going to be sick for a little while. She's going to get some treatment, but it's only going to be six months and then she'll be back to her normal health.

So I was like, oh, I'll take your word for it. Whatever. No worries. Yeah. You don't realize till afterwards when you're a parent and you're an adult, just the severity of it. Yeah. Once I was kind of back into my twenties, it came back and yeah you started to realize that no

they kind of they knew this day was gonna come whereas I probably all of kids probably hadn't fully grasped that. That was such an act of parental love that shielding and protection. You said that you wanted to be a son and lie at the foot of the bed. Did you get a chance to do that? Yeah, no. So I flew back and had about 10 days in the palliative hospital with mom, dad, and all my siblings.

It was a really magical 10 days. We shared a lifetime full of memories and stories and lots of laughter, tears, but a really special family time really. I'm so glad I went home. I'd be ruining that for the rest of my life if I didn't. Sometimes I speak to people who have witnessed or supported someone through the dying process and they say that it teaches them so much about life and how to live life. Has it changed the way that you live your life? A hundred percent. Probably comes down to the time management.

I'm like so crystal clear now and like, you know, family's priority. You just can't keep kicking things down the road. You know, a lot of sports people, but you know, maybe me in particular, you think, okay, I'll play cricket till I'm 35, 36. Albie will be six years old and then life will start and then we can start hanging out as a family. I've definitely changed my mindset now. It's like, no, I'm going to live life.

You know, say a big emphatic yes to things that we want to really do as a family. You know, when we're on tour, let's make sure we have the time of our lives because when we're on tour, we're away from our families where we don't want to just want to watch the clock kind of tick by, bring the families along, just trying to live life a little bit more. Do you feel your mum with you when you're on the pitch? Yeah, every day. You know, I think particularly since becoming a father as well, you remember the lessons

that kind of she passed down to us kids. What was her name? Maria. And what was she like? Did everything you could imagine. Um, so when we'll, you know, you really young children, she set up like a play, play group for, you know, the community and all those kinds of kids. When we got a little bit older, she created like a social group for us teenagers to hang out and then kind of once we moved out, she, she started

setting up, um, some disability netball teams she would go and feed the charity on Wednesday she's never hear a bad word said about mom she was amazing. Sounds like you learned so much about leadership from her as well as love. Totally yeah 100% that's you know that's that's always been instilled in us kids is I guess how lucky we are and not to waste that. Hey, I'm Robert Smith from Planet Money and this summer we are bringing you the entire history of the world, at least the economics part. It's Planet Money Summer School. Every week we'll invite in a brilliant professor and play classic episodes about the birth of money, banks, and finance.

There will be rogues and revolutionaries and a lot of panics. Summer School, every Wednesday till Labor Day on the Planet Money Podcast from NPR. Introducing Tim's new infuser energy beverages made with natural caffeine. They come in two refreshing flavors, blackberry yuzu and mango starfruit. Try them today, only at Tim's. At participating Tim's restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Your second failure is having to say no to people. Why did you choose this one? I think inherently I quite like pleasing people. I'm quite curious. I quite like doing things, learning new things, meeting people. My natural kind of response to most things is yes. If I don't do that I feel like I can let people down

sometimes. Yeah I feel like in the last kind of particularly couple of years I say no probably nine times out of 10. It's just hard sometimes. I've always kind of thought, oh, it's really hard on them. Me saying no, but kind of in the past when I have said yes, and I've gone and done, spent time away from my family, I kind of realized I was probably the loser in those situations. So I've just, it's a bit of a probably mind shift in the last year or two to kind of be really crystal clear on what my priorities are and where I want to

spend my time. What kind of things do you say no to? Events, coffee meetings, charities, even charities. Everyone's got a cause and most of them are amazing, but you can't help everyone. Sometimes they're the really challenging conversations you need to have, whereas I really value your charity. I think it's amazing, but I just, I can't commit to have, whereas I really value your charity. I think it's amazing, but I just, I can't commit to it. I just, I don't have enough bandwidth.

So holidays, those kinds of things without the family, you know, like, you know, mates weekends away or whatever it is. So yeah, I find it a lot easier now, but it's, it's taken a while to get comfortable saying no. So what's your formula for saying no, because I need your help. Is it not to over explain? You just said that, that elegant sentence, I don't have the bandwidth at the moment.

Is that what you say? Yeah, I'd say I've got a few different ways I've kind of tried to craft over the years. I've given away all my secrets. Oh no please, this is like a public service. Yeah, I like that, just saying, you know, I don't have the bandwidth at the moment. The easy one for me is I'm away so much.

So even if it's a random Tuesday night, I've got nothing on, that's still really precious for me. I may only get 20 nights at home where I'm sitting on the couch with nothing to do. So I'll say, sorry, I'm with my family that night. So that's a no. I quite like doing blanket rules for things. So I'll be like, it's a bad example because I'm doing a podcast, but you know, can you come and do this podcast?

And I'll be like, look, I've done quite a few lately. So I'm just doing a bit of a blanket rule. I'm not doing any podcasts for 12. Yes. Yes. So it's kind of almost, I'm not the bad person. It's just this rule that's happened. Yeah.

Kind of put me at arm's length. So helpful. What else do I use? I'm busy at the moment, but round back in six months or 12 months. And if they do round back, then you're happy to help. But most people don't, they just kind of flick off a request really quickly. And you know, it takes two seconds out of their day to fire off a request. But if you were to do that request, it might take you an hour or a day, whatever it is.

So there are a few things, you know, if I can't commit any time, I always try and, um, you know, it was a charity or anything like that. Um, you know, I can't make any person, but happy to give up a piece of memorabilia or, you know, in any other way we can help. That is so unbelievably helpful. Yes. I'm definitely going to adopt some of those. I wonder because those are all work related examples. I'm also very relieved that I made it through the blanket rule of no podcast. So thank you very much. That's all right. But when it comes to friendships, is that really difficult? Because you mentioned not going away

necessarily on a weekend with your friends because family time is a priority. And that's sometimes a real struggle, like maintaining friendships when you are incredibly busy or committed to your work life. How have you navigated that? Your really close friends get it. They understand it and they know you're not going anywhere in terms of you'll see you'll see each other when you see each other. There was this kind of mind exercise I saw which really stuck with me a while ago and I'm going to stuff it up because I can't quite remember it. But it's like write down your 20 priorities in life. So it might be cricket, being a husband, father, friends, commitments around, you know, sponsorships or whatever it is, go into the pub and write down everything and then list them from importance one to 20.

You know, those top three or five are the ones you've got to, they're obviously your top priorities. Number five to 20, they're the danger ones. You've got to actively avoid them because they're the ones that you commit to thinking, oh, that'll be fine, that'll be a good idea. But it kind of detracts from the top five. So I found that a really good way for me to frame

how I want to spend my time. Yes. There's also an element to this, which is it's that public enemy line, which I'm also going to scupper, but it's something like if you stand for nothing, you fall for anything. And you have made your cause, your kind of charity cause is very clear and focused and it's about climate, isn't it? It's about reducing cricket's carbon footprint. And so does that make it easier in a way,

because you want to clarify the fact that you stand for this thing, so therefore you have to say no to other things. 100% in the charity space. I've kind of got two charities that I work with, so UNICEF Australia. I'm an ambassador for, and yeah, this other charity, you know, Cricket for Climate, which we've set up, which is about trying to decarbonize cricket really, particularly community clubs buy different initiatives such as putting solar panels on their roofs.

Not only does it lower their footprint, but it also puts a few dollars back in the club. It does make a lot easier then to say no to other things that do pop up. Why is climate important to you? Living in Australia is a big one. We're a very outdoors country. We've just got some of the most amazing real estate in the world. You know, you've got the Great Barrier Reef, you've got amazing beaches, you've got amazing bushland, countryside. And that was such a big part of my childhood.

I would hate for that to be lost. You know, now becoming a father, I look at Albie's future and I just think it's so important that whilst we're in a position right now where there's actual real initiatives we can do to make a difference, I would hate for apathy to be the main reason as to why we didn't do it. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there.

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Tell us about the farm. Yeah. So we've got a small little property just south of Sydney and I think that's our happy place away from the world. It's super basic. It's not glamorous at all. It's just like an old little barn that we've kind of converted ourselves. First of all, that's the place to kind of get away from it all and just spend family

time and recharge a little bit. But I love it because it's like my DIY place. So I did all the flooring myself and it's a good reminder every time we go down there that you see all the gaps and the unevenness in the floors and you trip over kind of fixing fences and I'm just terrible at it. So, and I think that's one of the appeals. It's like cricket, I'm playing at a high level, but then I go back to being a farmer and I've got no clue what I'm doing and I've just got to try and figure it out. And I spent hours trying to fix a fence. You know, we spent

a large portion of COVID down there and this was before we had Albie, but I would be gone from like 8am in the morning till 5pm at night. Becky would be like, what have you been doing out on the farm? And I'm like, I fixed one fence. And she's like, well, you know, a whole fence. I'm like, no, one metre of fence. And I just, I find it so humbling, kind of being an absolute novice at something. So I quite like doing that. I interviewed Mark and Gladwell for this podcast a few years ago and he spoke about finding joy in being mediocre at something because you're so right, we live in this culture of excellence where success is fetishized.

And he spoke about how he used to be a sort of championship runner when he was at high school and then just was never going to be quite good enough to get to an athletic level. And so gave up running until he was then in his thirties, I think, and he started jogging and is not very good at it, but still maintains that it's, it's almost like a spiritual practice to be not very good at something. I love that. I think, you know, putting a cricketing lens on it, you, you start playing cricket because you love it and you love it the whole way through your childhood

for most people, you know, even, you know, you see adults playing cricket their whole life for the love of it. Once it starts becoming super competitive around the professional stage, you know, I've seen lots of people lose the love for it. It becomes really serious. It becomes suddenly your livelihood and all those things. So mediocre isn't really going to cut it anymore. Whereas it said, you know, other endeavors where you're just doing it for the pure joy of it or the learning or the, you know, the journey, whatever it is.

I think there's so much to be gaining that. So yeah, I love that. And do you think you'll get better at doing DIY on the farm? Are you actually learning and improving? Well, I mean, to be honest, I haven't had a lot of time the last couple of years to just tinker for hours on end. So I mean, I hope so. I can't get worse. Can I surely? But yeah, maybe, you know, once the hobby gets a little bit older, maybe we can learn a few things together. How do you see your life after cricket?

I'm probably clear on what I don't want it to become. You know, I've got some ideas on how I'd want to spend my time. I think non-negotiables for me are, I've spent so much of my life on the road the last 10 years that I just I want to be home Having just the normality of a routine having weekends, you know I've had weekends in years to just having a bit of a normal life at home. I would love no doubt I'll be kind of involved in Cricket or sport in some capacity You know, I think I'd quite like to start from kind of base camp again on something else So, you know in kind of the business world, investing, venture capital,

I find that really interesting. So kind of, I spent a lot of my time, or, you know, I'm listening to podcasts and it's not your podcast Elizabeth. I dare you. Yeah, exactly. I do have some other podcasts sometimes I listen to, and it's normally centered around that world, which I find really interesting. It's what I did at uni. So maybe kind of start from the ground level in another

industry as well. Yes. Become mediocre at something again and learn again. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, like cricket, you go to training and you might have a great training session, you might get 1% better. Whereas you start from the scrap somewhere else and you might get 10% better each week at something. So it's, I find that quite appealing. Yes. It's allowing yourself to fail gloriously. I like not always to be at a level of excellence, but striving to get there ultimately. I think the process is so much part of that journey. How do you deal with criticism?

Because there are, as we mentioned earlier, so many opinions about who you are, what you do and how you play cricket. How much do you engage with it? I'm talking about sort of maybe cricketing fans, but also in the media. I've gotten more comfortable with it. You know, it can be demoralizing, can be crippling.

If you get too caught up into it. Have you ever been crippled by it? I don't think so. You know, there's been a couple of times where I've, I've kind of, kind of been in the, in the firing line, but probably after a couple of days, you start to realize that I know it's, it's insignificant. I've for whatever reason, I've always been able to kind of not get too worried about it that much.

Um, but there are some days where, you know, I can't stop thinking about, um, you know, a loss and the criticism around a loss or, you know, some, someone calling me out for something for a day or two. But to be honest, that was a few years ago. Now it doesn't really ever affect me as much, but, you know, again, I always come back to if you've got a really strong support network around you, you are really strong and what you believe case in point, say, you know, the climate change debate. If you can call it debate, you can get caught up in really worrying about people

who disagree with you and calling your names and all those kinds of things. But at the end of the day, I'm proud of what I've said or proud of what I've achieved in this space, then who cares, really? Yes. So again, always try to come back to, am I comfortable with what I've done? Can I look at myself in the mirror and be happy? And as long as you can do that, I find outside criticism a lot easier to handle.

I think living in alignment with your values and understanding what those values are is the perfect antidote because like you, I'm an inveterate people pleaser. I'm a reformed people pleaser. But criticism is very hard for someone who is in the grip of people pleasing to deal with. And that's only, I mean, your years ahead of me, it's taken me much longer than you to sort of understand that if I'm okay with it, and if the people that I love think I've done a good job, that's enough.

Yeah, it's not easy. And I guess in some ways it's not natural. You might have a thousand different opinions about you, but yeah, 999 of those people may have never met you, may have not even know who you are, just saw one little quote that's taken out of content, whatever it is. So I think you start learning pretty quickly that it's not real world. People are quite brave on the internet, but most people you meet in real life are lovely. I always come back to, as a child I loved cricket. I knew everything that was going on with the Australian cricket team. I was obsessed, but I never read a newspaper in my life as a child. So I had no idea what was getting written in the papers.

Whereas kind of now that we're players and you do press conferences, you can get so caught up into kind of what's written in papers or whatever it's going on. But you realize that 90% of fans don't even read the papers. They're just fans of cricket. They just love seeing the team do well and don't kind of get caught up in the rubbish in between. Final question. Do you have any lucky rituals or superstitions when you go and play cricket? No, I'm probably close to the least superstitious person you could meet. Okay, so you walk under ladders and stuff?

Yeah, all the time. Yeah, I go looking for black cats. Again, cricket's a funny sport because you can turn up day one of a test match and you could be in the field for seven hours that day, or you could win the toss and you're batting and you feed up drinking coffee all day. So I always try and stay super relaxed until I have to switch it on and hoping I can switch it on. Coffee's come up a lot in this interview. You love a bit of coffee, eh? I think maybe just this morning I'm quite tired.

Okay, yeah. So jet lag. Yeah. Pat Cummins, you are very elegant at saying no, but I'm so honoured that you didn't say no to coming on How to Fail. Thank you so, so much. Thanks for having me. This is great. Don't go anywhere because you're staying for Failing with Friends

when our listeners get to ask for your advice. Oh dear. Remember to follow us to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please share a link with everyone you know. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.