By Caden Helmers
Australian cricket legend Dennis Lillee believes Patrick Cummins has "10 great years ahead of him" and will be the man to spearhead Australia's Test attack in years to come.
Lillee says the national selectors should turn their attention to youth if under-fire players in the Australian outfit fail to perform and save the three-Test series against South Africa.
Mentor: Dennis Lillee has been working with young bowler Pat Cummins.Credit: David Burgess
A hefty 177-run defeat at the hands of the Proteas in the first Test marked the first time Australia have lost the opening Test of the summer since 1988.
The hosts looked to be in complete control at stumps on day one before the wicket of David Warner sparked a major batting collapse and it became one-way traffic for the visitors.
"The pressure of failing, the pressure of not winning the Test … and knowing you may only have one more Test, that can also put pressure on," Lillee said.
"Good players come through pressure. If that doesn't work, then they've got to start looking for new blood, and younger maybe as well."
As the batsmen come under fire for failing to take advantage of the 158-run opening partnership, Lillee says the bowlers should have pressed home the advantage following day one.
Cummins is on the comeback trail from injury and has been dubbed by Lillee and Mitchell Johnson as a player Australia need at the bowling crease.
"[Cummins] has paid his own fare across a couple of times to come and work with me," Lillee said.
"Cummins has come over and he's remodelling and he's coming along really nicely. I think he unfortunately got talked into trying to bowl too fast too soon while we were remodelling over the last 18 months.
"He now realises that and he's trying to hold together that remodelling and not get talked into bowling too fast until his body is ready and his motor muscle memory changes to the new action.
"It looks like it's coming good and he's getting wickets. He is certainly a massive potential for me."
Cummins paying his own way to Perth to work with one of the game's greatest fast bowlers is reminiscent of Lillee booking himself in for physiotherapy during his playing days.
The 67-year-old is travelling to promote his autobiography Dennis Lillee and recalled the days when his $200 Test match payments struggled to cover his appointments.
"It's hard for people of this era to remember how much it was an amateur game and it had been for 100 years," Lillee said.
"You played and it was just purely for the love of the game – a lot of sacrifices had to be made, including those things like going and organising your own physio and stuff like that because they didn't have physios at the ground, it was just a rubber.
"Often you'd need physio work, so you just did it off your own bat and your own time."
Not one to shy away from the hard yards, Lillee would also go for runs during the hottest part of the day.
It was all part of an obsessive mentality drummed into Lillee by his late grandfather, a boxing coach, to be the fittest player going around.
Lillee played a huge role in making sure players wouldn't be booking their own physio appointments for long in providing the embryo for World Series Cricket.
In explaining the precarious financial position of Test cricketers over a beverage or two with manager John Cornell and his offsider Austin Robertson, Lillee came up with an idea.
Before long Lillee pitched the concept of a one-off game between the all-conquering Australian XI and the rest of the world to Kerry Packer and the game changed forever.
"Cricketers all from now on, at some stage in their careers, should face whichever way, wherever they are, face towards Kerry's grave and say a little thank you," Lillee said.