Do we like Pat Cummins?
Our score: 8 out of 10. He has put his name to climate action and anti-racism gestures for years, and the only recent mess is a newspaper story he says was made up.
Pat Cummins was named the 47th captain of Australia's men's Test team in November 2021. The job came with a side order of politics, because the sports pages were soon arguing about whether he was an 'activist captain'. The record I found is thin on his childhood, so this column is about what he has done with the armband.
The loudest stoush was over climate. In early 2022 he led the launch of Cricket for Climate, which started by getting solar power onto around 4,000 local clubs. Critics weighed in straight away: Peter Lalor in The Australian warned of an 'activist captain', and radio host Tom Elliott said he should focus on winning the Ashes. Cummins wasn't backing down, and he pitched it as a chance to cut the game's carbon footprint.
On the harm check, the record is clean. Nothing I found has him demeaning anyone, and no conspiracy rabbit holes turned up. He has backed Black Lives Matter and taking a knee, and one report says he also spoke out for a Yes vote on the Voice, though it gave no quotes on that. On that 2023 criticism he said that if he were to “pander to a loud minority”, that wouldn't be good. I found nothing specific on LGBTQ+ issues either way, so that's a gap, not a tick.
The SA20 saga is the freshest bit of mess. In May 2026 The Age reported that Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood were each offered about A$800,000 by The Hundred, and that players might jump to the SA20 over Big Bash pay. Cummins replied on X that what was written about him on the SA20 and The Hundred was “made up”. Earlier, on a podcast, he had questioned the pay gap between Test cricket and T20 leagues, so this is a pay fight, not a values one.
On the good-person side, in April 2021, while playing in the IPL, he announced US$50,000 for India's Covid fight and asked others to chip in. He said India was a country he had come to love dearly. On the field, he led Australia to the Ashes in 2025-26: after missing the first two Tests he came back in Adelaide, took six wickets and helped retain the urn.
So would we support him? Yes. His public record has a climate foundation, a spine under pressure and a donation to people in need. The gaps are that I found little on LGBTQ+ matters and that this is a sportsman's file, not a politician's. There's no pattern to worry about, just a captain who keeps being told to stick to cricket.