Young bulls wounded, but stick with them, because they'll take us back to the summit Pat Cummins has bowled almost 300 overs for Australia. Losing the Ashes in England was bad enough. What made it worse was that we also lost two of my fellow fast bowlers, James Pattinson and Mitch Starc, to back injuries severe enough to keep them on ice for the start of the return series in Australia. Whenever a fast bowler, especially a young one, is injured the criticism comes thick and fast. Most of it is aimed at team doctors, physios and other Cricket Australia staff for not doing enough to keep us out on the park. But some of it invariably lands with us, that we're brittle and so concerned with avoiding injury that we don't train hard enough - and then get injured because we're not fit enough, because we don't train enough. We hear what some of the retired fast bowlers say, the slurs. Of course, they're entitled to their opinion, but as a current player it does frustrate me, given how hard we train away from matches. Anyone baffled at how I, at 34, managed to get through the recent Ashes series unscathed - besides a bad hammy at the end - when the young bucks couldn't would have a different opinion if they had seen me after the second Test at Lord's, my first for the series. I remember being so sore I was struggling to get out of bed. It was lucky I had my wife there to drag me out for walks around London. At the same time Patto found out his series, which he had physically and mentally set himself for, was over - due to a return of stress fractures in his back. A couple of days after the last Test, Starcy joined him. When people talk about both of them and also Pat Cummins, who suffered the same injury at the same time playing for Australia A, they complain of how things keep going wrong. They should be marvelling at how all of them have managed to bowl so much - and so fast - while so young. Before my 26th birthday I had bowled just less than 500 overs for South Australia, and was nowhere near a national call-up. Among my established fast-bowling teammates for the Gabba Test, Mitch Johnson fared slightly better to the same stage of his career, with just more than 650 overs at interstate level or above, while Peter Siddle had sent down close to 1000 overs. Patto and Starcy are 23 and they've already done much more than we were able to. Even when you ignore Twenty20, Patto and Starcy have between them bowled about 2400 overs. And even though Pat Cummins has more than five years up his sleeve - I still struggle to remember he's only 20 - he's already nudging 300. Fast bowlers need time to grow into their bodies - those stats prove it. There's not too many guys around the world who are playing at that level, bowling as fast as they do, without having had any interruptions. They're a lot fitter and stronger than I was at their age. When their body lets them down it's just a massive let-down, for them and also for us as teammates. Patto was shattered when he got the news. I remember giving him a pat on the bum and saying, "Mate, just keep your chin up, you'll be back - you've done it before, you'll do it again." That's just the way we roll as bowlers. The guys we've got coming through, when they get fit and strong, are going to make our attack unbelievable. It's pretty good now but I think we can go back to dominating the world when those guys are around - and we've got some other young guys coming through as well. I hope in five years' time people realise that putting time into these young blokes has been worth it, because they've turned into world-class bowlers.