Six years after his storied Test debut, Pat Cummins became a key member of Australia's pace bowling attack over the year from March 2017 to March 2018, shouldering an enormous workload, and then being in the thick of the disastrous tour of South Africa. Cummins spoke to ESPNcricinfo about the demands of pace bowling, entering maturity, and his part in the review of the national team's culture.

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Having spent five years in and out of the team, then 12 months playing pretty much everything, was it weird being back on the couch [for the England ODI tour]?

Last summer there was one ODI I was rested from, and I remember thinking, "This is weird, I haven't watched an Australian cricket game with me not playing in it for nearly 18 months", so it is a little bit weird being at home and watching it. I normally just turn straight into cricket-fan mode rather than player mode. It was a tough tour in England, the ODIs, but good to see some pretty good performances from a couple of the guys.

How have you reflected on the past 15 months or so and the sheer volume of cricket you played - second only to Kagiso Rabada among pace bowlers since the start of 2017?

It's pretty crazy. I think I played 13 straight Test matches, just about all the ODIs bar one or two, and a few Shield games, some IPL, some other cricket. It was pretty much more cricket [in a year] than I'd played in the last five or six years previously. It was a great transition from feeling like a fringe player to a white-ball player to a Test player, to "now I'm on every tour". It was a pretty nice feeling.

I think in the years leading up to it, it was always a case where I never knew where I was going to be in a month's time because I could be on tour, not picked, injured or fully fit.

Being able to think about playing well rather than whether I was going to play or not has been really nice. Really happy with how everything's gone in terms of my cricket. I couldn't have been happier. The challenge now is to keep building on that and playing that much cricket again and trying to play as well.

Did you see benefits for your bowling from that continuity?

Yeah, absolutely, and I think that just comes from playing and getting more confident. One, in my body, that I could bowl 20 overs in a day consistently, but also more confident that I can try new things. Whether it's trying to take the risk with an inswinger, or trying to just be a bit more confident in the way I approach the game, expecting to take plenty of wickets and be a big performer each game.

If you haven't played a lot of cricket, it's pretty hard to fake that. The more I played, the more comfortable I felt in everything, getting a routine, getting up for a game and preparing for a game, and once I was in a game, also just knowing what I needed to do. If I didn't take a wicket in my first couple of spells, I knew I was all sweet because I'd been playing a lot and bowling well.

Did you go to the pre-tour camp in Brisbane, and if so, what did you get out of it? One of the things I heard was that the team's standards and expectations are much more about behaviour than results now.

I was there for a couple of days. JL's [Justin Langer] really big on controlling the things that we can control - common sense, fitness, honesty. Those kinds of things which all contribute to us winning games, but more than anything else, it's getting the best out of ourselves. Hopefully that translates into winning more games, but that's not the absolute be-all and end-all. It's making sure we train hard, do everything right, be honest, be good players, play for the right reasons, play well, and be judged on that rather than whether we lose a game or not. It's slightly different to some of the outlooks we had previously, but we've got really clear values written down now that we always go back to, and we all think they're great values, they've worked really well over in Western Australia.

In the thick of it: Cummins has been an Australian mainstay for a while, after a sporadic, injury-plagued start to his career Getty Images

Fair to say there's been plenty of thinking about the wider implications of playing for Australia since South Africa - although you've spoken about having this realisation during the home Ashes series before it.

After South Africa it gave us all a chance to think, and it did show us a really clear perspective, because before the Ashes I'd been on tour for Australia for six months, all overseas, and you know it's important, you know there's people at home watching. But it's not until you get on a bus to the ground and you see all the Australian flags and people dressed up, walking to the game, that it really hits you. You know it on tour as well, [but] it's such a bubble you're in, hotel to ground, hotel to ground, and you just do that for so long, sometimes you do lose sight of how much it means to so many different people.

After that it really gave us a chance to sit back and think. JL as well was an outsider - he hasn't been on tour for a few years. He was able to give some really good perspective as well, as a fan and someone involved in the game. Part of those values is just recognising why we're playing the game, who we're playing it for, and more than anything, just taking that extra second to think about how much cricket means to Australians.

Something that you were able to do that others have not is study at university - how much do you think that has helped you mature?

I was really lucky. If I was on tour with Australia the whole time, I think I would've really struggled to finish my uni or do it properly. Whereas with the injuries, it afforded me the time to actually go sit in the classroom and do the things a lot of my other mates from back home are doing. It gave me a little bit more of a perspective about what most people have to do.

We certainly don't live in the real world. We're so lucky with where we travel and how we travel. Our hobby is basically a full-time job, so having something outside of cricket, I think has helped me with a bit of perspective. For me it was uni and studying, for other people it may be different hobbies or things they like to immerse themselves in, but for me uni definitely helped to get a bit more normality into my life.

That study included public relations, so are you more conscious of the image of the game even as you're playing it?

I did a business degree and marketing and PR. It all encapsulates what's involved in cricket. It opens my mind a little bit to know that not everything's so black and white, everything's got a bit of grey and there's always two parts to every story. That's what you learn at uni, and I think it's a pretty important lesson for cricket. When you're injured or dropped it seems like the worst thing in the world, but it never really is, and when you're flying high you are only a game or two away from suddenly being a dunce. So just being a bit more level, that's another thing the real world teaches you about.

You may not be able to go into specifics but you're on the panel for the independent review of the Australian men's team, chaired by Rick McCosker. What sort of an experience has that been?

Rick's been really good. We've just met up a couple of times but I think from our part, the players' part of the process, it has been relatively informal. We're not out to try and catch anyone or do anything too drastic. For Rick it's about trying to get a bit of a context for cricket, where it's at and just a bit of an overview of the last five or ten years, of the way we do things, how can we do things better or things we're doing well, and just give that feedback to Cricket Australia, and have a bit of a more independent look at some of the things we go around. It hasn't been too formal or super-intense. I've been really glad to be part of it, and Rick's certainly involving a lot of people.

Cummins on Smith: "He just can't do anything right at the moment and I feel so sorry for him" Robert Cianflone / © Getty Images

I think South Africa started that conversation, and obviously with the incredible amount of media attention, fan feedback and all those kinds of things you read in the newspapers and online, it's pretty clear that everybody wants to see a bit of change, and that started the conversation - what can we improve on, what can we change, what do we think we're doing well? I think that naturally happens as well when you've got a new coach and captain, and I see this review just as part of that process, some more voices into the conversation and creating some independent input. From there it's up to us to take that forward.

If we need to change any way we play or conduct ourselves or things like that, now's the time to do it. It'll be interesting to see how we go ahead, I don't think we'll see anything too drastic, but it's a time for everyone to reflect on how they present themselves, how they play and alter that if they need to or find things they need to work on.

How do you reconcile that desire for change with the aggression, even anger, inherent in being a fast bowler?

The reason so many people love sport and why I love watching sport is because it's so natural, so pure, and for me I don't want to lose any of that emotion that comes with it. But if we talk about abuse, it's certainly over the line, and that's not pure emotion, that's pre-planned bullying sometimes, and we've all been guilty of that. But it's about trying to harness that aggression into our bowling and our body language, those kinds of things, but trying to keep it in check and not get too carried away with it. I feel like as bowlers we all do it reasonably well at the moment, but like anyone else we've always got things to improve on. We're still going to be trying to bowl fast and trying to puff the chest out, I'm sure.

The ICC has introduced specific code-of-conduct charges for cheating, swearing and personal abuse. Do you think that reflects this has been a wider unsavoury trend in the way the game is increasingly being played?

That's it. We've always had the umpires, both on-field and off-field, being the people who pull us into line if we're out of line - they've been the judges so far. [After] opening up the mics full-time, I hope those are still the main people who make decisions and they're pulling us into line before anything becomes a problem like in the past. I think it's great to see a crackdown on a few of those rules. The last couple of years it probably has got a little bit more prevalent than maybe it was beforehand, but whatever's best for the game, us players are always happy to go for.

Steve Smith recently was described in the press as a "sad sight" having a drink by himself in New York. Does that sum up the sort of spotlight this whole affair has created?

I just feel for them so much. I think anyone has a dream to go to New York and have a quiet beer by themselves, but if Steve does it then it's suddenly the worst thing anyone could ever do. If he stays home then suddenly he's a hermit. He just can't do anything right at the moment and I feel so sorry for him. I know when he came back, he went to the shops and there was paparazzi following him at the shops. We're talking about a really normal 29-year-old here who just wants to get on with his life and just be a normal 29-year-old. I really feel sorry for them. They just want to get back to doing what they love, do it quietly, and I just wish that everyone lets them be, encourages them. I feel like 99% of people are, it's just to that 1%, give them a chance, give them a bit of space and treat them like anyone else.