Sunrise host Nat Barr leaves Pat Cummins in stitches with cheeky suggestion for Australian cricket captain

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Pat Cummins has always embraced his status as captain of the “new age” Australian cricket team.

And now he’s taken one particular evolution to a new level, putting even more space between him and some of the sport’s greats.

Decades on from Dennis Lillee, Max Walker and Mike Whitney fronting famous beer ads Cummins has gone down a very different route.

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“I’ve been caught out for a few times in the change room drinking what looks like beer,” Cummins told Sunrise on Wednesday.

“But it’s actually kombucha. New-age cricket team, not quite what it used to be!”

Cummins has signed on to be an ambassador for kombucha brand Nexba.

“There’s plenty more collaborations in the works, can’t say too much but yeah, (a lot) coming down the pipeline,” he said.

The tease prompted a cheeky suggestion from Sunrise host Nat Barr.

“Oh I know! You could see how many you could drink on a flight from Sydney to London,” she joked, tapping into one of cricket’s most famous lores: David Boon drinking 52 cans of beer on a flight to England.

The tip left Cummins in stitches as Matt Shirvington joked the cricketer would be “wired on kombucha”.

“That’s it!” the cricketer laughed.

“Not bad, I might use that!”

The story is beloved by fans but even Boon, now an ICC match referee tasked with keeping cricketers in line, has moved on, sharing his regret over the fallout.

Meanwhile, Cummins said he is “another couple of weeks” away from being good to go after breaking his left wrist in the final Ashes Test.

Cummins is sitting out Australia’s next tour. Credit: Ashley Allen/Getty Images

The injury ruled him out of a white-ball tour of South Africa beginning next week as Australia’s Cricket World Cup preparations begin to ramp up.

Ashes comeback star Mitch Marsh will captain the team in his absence.

“He’ll be great. He’s done a bit of vice-captaincy before but he’s always a leader around the group,” Cummins said.

“He’s great fun, especially in T20 and one-day cricket – he takes the game on. I think that’s what you need in that format so he’s going to do a terrific job.”

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Mitch Marsh will captain the Australian white-ball teams in South Africa. Credit: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

Steve Smith is also out of the South African tour after revealing that he played the final three Ashes Tests with tendon damage in his left wrist.

“I must have just landed awkwardly,” Smith told AAP.

“It was quite painful at Headingley. Even in the lead-in, I didn’t hit that much in the nets. I was just trying to find a way to hold the bat that wasn’t painful.

“After that, some shots I played, cross-bat and back-foot punching I was sore. Trying to decelerate the bat was hard, or defending sometimes was sore. But it wasn’t awful.”