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There was a time when Patrick Cummins couldn't get on the park. Four years between first-class games, six years between Test matches, an endless loop of rehab benches and exercise bikes.

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Pat Cummins finally gets his reward after day of toil
There was a time when Patrick Cummins couldn't get on the park. Four years between first-class games, six years between Test matches, an endless loop of rehab benches and exercise bikes.

Then there was a Friday afternoon in Manchester. Third day of the Test, fourth Test of the series.

In his 23rd Test of Australia's last 25, with a three-day break between this and the next, Pat Cummins was bowling 10 overs on the spin.

Mitchell Starc had just finished his 11th over and wouldn't be back. Five of them had been maidens, mostly thanks to bowling too wide. The other six had disappeared for 41 runs.

Cummins had a job to do.

First, the three overs before the tea break. A single, a single, a maiden. Twenty minutes to take a breath and grab a muesli bar. Then back at it.

England had been getting comfortable. Two wickets down for 118 when Cummins came on, with a 93-run partnership that had gathered pace through Starc's more expensive overs.

Cummins had a plan. Rory Burns, unsuited to the short ball, saw plenty of it. Hitting him on the gloves, the thigh pad. Making him bob and weave. Pitching the odd one up to beat the edge.

Joe Root menwhile got the ball fuller, playing and missing as regular punctuation, with the odd lifter to threaten his fingers

Another maiden followed tea, then a couple of singles, then a couple of uncontrolled Root shots to the boundary. The second should have been a simple catch but split first slip and the wicketkeeper as they looked at one another.

In Cummins's seventh over he sheared a ball back in sharply enough to draw a DRS review, but was hitting outside the line of the stumps. He followed up with another edge for four.

Hazlewood, normally a polite appealer, went up in celebration before remembering to turn around to the umpire. Root only looked at Kumar Dharmasena in glum resignation, walking off without bothering to discuss a referral.

t was the 73rd over of the innings. On a day when England had got on top, when the bowlers had toiled, and with a ball so old that it was quoting Danny Glover, Cummins and Hazlewood had wrested back control with some quiet support from Nathan Lyon's off-spin.

Cummins was entirely casual about the effort, strolling loose-limbed down the dressing-room stairs to chat to media.

"It was mainly my idea," he said of his long spell.

"One good thing about it being 15 degrees in England is that you can keep bowling, and I felt pretty good."

The job is far from done: the lead may stand at 297, but Ben Stokes is still at the crease in the summer of his life, with Jonny Bairstow for company and Jos Buttler to come. England have two days to play, and will have to hope that their batting and perhaps some rain can take enough time out of that to thwart an Australian win.

For Australia, the lesson is one that Cummins already knows better than anyone. Patience wins, and reward can come at the end of the longest toil.

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