Australia captain Pat Cummins opened up about his struggles in dealing with his mother’s death, saying it was “the hardest time of my life.”
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Cummins’ mind was not in India
Cummins’ mother, Maria, succumbed to cancer last year.
The 30-year-old returned home from his Test series in India to be with his ailing mother, as she received treatment.
“I knew when I was getting on that plane that I was going to have to come back in a couple of weeks pretty much,” Cummins said in an interview with Imperfects podcast.
“Flying away… That’s the hardest time of my life, easily. I probably felt it in the 12 months leading in. Any time I flew away I was like, ‘Time’s finite here, I’m making a deliberate choice to go and play somewhere rather than spend it at home’.”
“But that time in particular – because we knew roughly the timeline, and knowing Mum and Dad as well; how much joy they get, sitting together, watching me play.
“That gave me enough confidence to go and play. They were desperate for me to go and play, and I knew I could hop on a flight at any time and come back.”
“But for those couple of weeks I was in India, especially now I look back on it, my mind was not in India. It was back home the whole time.”
Cummins said he only wanted to be with his mother at one point.
“I remember my manager and a couple of other people around me who I normally listen to were calling me and being like, ‘I think we need to give a little bit of a reason why you’ve gone home’, and I’m like, ‘Nah, don’t care’, and he’s like, ‘Nah, you’re getting a lot of heat here, you’ve got to explain yourself’, and I was like, ‘I honestly do not care what people think’,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sunrisers Hyderabad named Cummins as their new captain for IPL 2024.
