Pat Cummins and wife Becky welcome daughter

Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins and his wife Becky have welcomed their second child, a baby girl named Edith.

“She’s here,” Becky Cummins posted on Instagram with a picture of the newborn being cuddled by her mum. “Our beautiful baby girl, Edi … Words can’t describe how overjoyed & full of love we feel right now.”

Cummins, who took paternity leave for Australia’s current Test tour of Sri Lanka, has previously said he wanted to encourage a better balance between family life and work among professional cricketers.

“I missed a big chunk [of son Albie’s early days] last time and I want to work out how we can spend a bit more time at home for that initial period this time around,” he said in October.

“Within reason, no one is ever going to bat an eyelid if someone needs to put their family first,” he said.

“We’re playing cricket, it’s not the end of the world, so we want people to have long, successful careers for Australia, and you can’t just ask them to put their life on hold to go tour the world and forget about everything else. We’re pretty open when it comes to family.”

It appears to be part of a wider trend in cricket, with Travis Head and Mitch Marsh on paternity leave for the recent series against Pakistan, and Indian superstar Virat Kohli flying home during a Test series against Australia in 2020 to be present at the birth of his first child.