It is doubtful that Australia captain Pat Cummins will be in the first Ashes test in Perth next month, and increasingly uncertain whether he will be fit to play the whole series with England.
Recent scans have shown that the 32 year old fast bowler is fighting a back injury that is yet to heal completely. Though there has been some improvement, Pat Cummins is yet to be bowling with the remaining six weeks to the very first Test on November 21.
He has already missed the white-ball series of Australia against South Africa and New Zealand and will miss the forthcoming limited overs matches against India. Cricket Australia has kept the details about his recovery schedule a secret but they have not officially disqualified him in the Perth Test.
Pat Cummins played in Australia last in its 3-0 Test series against the West Indies in July. Without him, this would be a great blow to Australia who are insistent to keep the Ashes that they have since 2018.
Without Pat Cummins, Scott Boland will be the candidate of choice to be included in the pace attack of Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood. Boland has an impressive form as he has a hat-trick in his final Test in the Caribbean which qualifies him as a strong candidate. In the event that Pat Cummins is injured, the vice-captain Steve Smith will assume the role of skipper.
The last Ashes Test will be on January 4 in Sydney and hence Cummins would have limited time to be back in the team in case his recovery slows down.
Nevertheless, Australia head coach Andrew McDonald is still optimistic that Cummins will at some point be used in the five-Test series. McDonald, who was speaking last month, said, “This is not ideal, but he is trying to work through it. We have plenty of time and we are optimistic that he will be instrumental in the Ashes.
Meanwhile, on the other England’s Joe Root reckons that his team is prepared to take the urn home following a passionless decade. It was in 2015 that England won the Ashes and since 2010-11, they have not succeeded in Australia.
Root has not won a single Test in Australia in 14 attempts, but swept aside media talk about his own record. It is not my tour, said he. It is all about the scoreline. Then it might be six weeks that would linger long in the memory were it but we got it right.
Elsewhere in the cricket news, ex-England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff has resigned as head coach of Northern Superchargers in The Hundred, claiming that he had been offered a contract that was a quarter of what his colleagues receive. Flintoff said, I said, this will not work with me, and they were not going to work on it.
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