Starc's rhythm 'is not far away', says Cummins

Australian pacer Mitchell Starc is going through a rough patch in bowling but his teammate Pat Cummins believes that the fellow pacer "is not far away" from getting back to his rhythm.

Cummins said that Starc bowled beautifully during the India series and is bowling really fast which is an indicator that his rhythm is mostly there.

"Starcy, when he's on, you just feel like he's going to rip through. You saw in the Indian series, both Indian (openers) got dropped because we started off really well with the new ball. I think the good thing is he's bowling really, really fast, so his rhythm mostly is there," Cricket.com.au quoted Cummins, as saying.

"I know he's tried to change a couple of things up, trying to get his feet aligned, but he's not far away. I think every training session he's working on things, trying to get better, and I'd love for him just to get a couple of wickets and it clicks because I really don't think it's far away," he added.

Following Cummins' career-best match and innings figures of 6 for 23 and 10 for 62 overall against Sri Lanka during their first Test at the Gabba, cricketing minds advocated that the pacer should be assigned the role of a new-ball bowler.

However, Cummins believes that the role should be left to new bowlers. He said that he is happy with his current role.

"The harder the ball is (the better), especially (on the second night) when conditions feel like it's swinging around, I love to get the ball in my hand in those kinds of times," Cummins said.

"But overall, I think the new (ball) bowlers always do a great job. So I feel like my role, coming in and hitting the deck, I do that pretty well and our openers do their job well as well," he added.

Australia had won the first Test against Sri Lanka by an innings and 40 runs. Both the teams will play their next Test from February I to 5 at the Manuka Oval.