Not Pat Cummins, but Boyes is bowling the world over

Before establishing himself as an emerging star of middle-distance running, Luke Boyes’s idea of a decent trot was to tear in from 20-yards to bowl fast ‘n hard as he tried  to emulate the feats of Australia’s Test cricket captain Pat Cummins, his childhood hero.

Boyes, who’ll represent Australia in the men’s 800m event at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, didn’t need to look too far for inspiration as a teenager whenever he’d daydream about taking the new ball with pace ace Cummins in a tense Ashes battle at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

“I always wished to be Pat Cummins,” Boyes, 22, and a proud product of the Blue Mountains told NSWIS Media. “He grew up down the road and played for Penrith when I was coming through the club’s junior ranks. I watched him play a few grade games for Penrith when he was returning from injury and while I never met him, I looked up to him, especially when he became Australia’s captain.

“He’s a great advocate for Cricket Australia and athletes in general. He’s extremely well spoken; carries himself well in the media and is one of the best fast bowlers Australia has produced. Added to that is he’s returned from severe injuries which shows he has plenty of resilience.”

While Boyes opened the bowling for Penrith’s and Sydney University’s Under 16 Green Shield teams, he admitted that whenever he thinks about his cricketing days his treasured dream of wearing the Aussie team’s Baggy Green was nothing more than that: a lofty dream.

“When I think about it, I consider myself a specialist fielder,” he said. “I really was more of a fielder than a batsman or a bowler, even though I was an opening bowler for a little period. It didn’t quite happen – cricket.

“I found cricket to be a sport where facing more balls in the nets or bowling more balls at training didn’t really further me,  whereas in athletics I can always train harder. Cricket eventually became a sport I mentally struggled with because I found ‘more’ didn’t equal ‘better’ and that frustrated me. In saying that, I love it. I’m on the waiting list to become a Sydney Cricket Ground Member [currently a 15 year wait] so I remain a huge  fan and go to cricket matches.”

While Boyes also enjoyed playing junior park football and will join his father after the Commonwealth Games in making a ‘pilgrimage’ to Anfield,  the home ground of the Liverpool English Premier League side they fanatically support, Boyes said the COVID 19 epidemic’s closure of all team sport helped him find his true calling.

“[The shutdown] was perfect timing for my running career because while I was being coached by [Olympian] Ben St Lawrence, I wouldn’t turn up to sessions. I was the state champion at high school, but I wasn’t really progressing.

“But due to the COVID restrictions I couldn’t do anything else, so Ben convinced me to attend a couple of sessions during the lockdown to pass the time and do some socialising. As it turned out, I became quite fit without really thinking about it and Ben convinced to compete in a race.  

“I missed the qualifying time for the junior world championships 800m event by one second. It’s funny, but I didn’t really know what the world juniors were at the time; didn’t really know too much about the sport at all, but I set about trying to run the qualifying time and [made the U20 2022 World Athletics Championships in Columbia] within four months of returning to the sport.”

Boyes, who had just graduated from Penrith High School, qualified for the semi finals of the championships and that success in South America ignited a fire within him.

“That was the turning point for me,” he said. “I thought, ‘this is something I could do.’” It came at a time when I wasn’t quite sure about what I would do in my life – just out of school – and one thing led to another and here I am.”

While he is studying a Bachelor of Law/Bachelor of Communications (social and political science) through UTS  – “I want to become a barrister, my parents always thought I was good at arguing and say I have logic, and I want to set my professional career up for life after athletics” – Boyes is doing all he can to build on his athletic successes.

Besides his Commonwealth Games selection, he celebrated a spectacular Diamond League debut in Shanghai in May after finishing fourth while setting a new PB of 1:44.16 and leading the race with 50 metres to go. In April, he fought hard in finishing second to Olympian Peter Bol at the Australian Athletic Championships in Sydney and backed that effort up by winning gold at the Oceania Championships in Darwin.

However, Boyes – who said the depth of Australia’s pool of 800m runners pushes him – insisted there is still room for him to improve.

“I look at [competing] as a process where if I follow my process, do my training, the results will come. I haven’t really put together a good season yet . . .  I’ve had one or two injuries a year, although, this year we got close. The quad injury was a set back but I focus on what I can do. If I can get my body at 100 percent, I’ll be in a good spot to go forward in my career.

[Competing in that first Diamond League meet taught a lot including] getting used to travelling as an elite athlete, it was something I hadn’t done for two years, and also socialising with the elite athletes in the hotels.

“It’s about getting into my mind the idea that this is where I belong, it’s the level I compete at now, and rather than looking at these big name athletes and putting them on a pedestal it’s about shifting my mind to realise they’re who I am competing against now. They’re people who have injuries, personal lives, and it’s a matter of just treating them on face value.”

While Cummins – who has taken 315 Test wickets – helped shape Boyes’s approach to sport without even knowing it, Boyes said upon his selection for Glasgow he spared a thought for his year five and six primary school teacher who extolled the virtues of the Commonwealth Games to her class.

“I had Mrs Jagger at Hazelbrook Primary School; her son Ben is in my training squad. She loved Commonwealth Games, she really built them up.

“That was in 2014 when they were held in Glasgow, and my coach [St Lawrence] competed in those Games as well, so I grew up believing they were a big deal and being selected to compete at these Glasgow Games is almost a full circle moment.”

Daniel Lane, NSWIS