Cummins may ‘take a few risks’ for Ashes availability after being ruled out for two months due to a back injury.
Cummins may ‘take a few risks’ to be able to play Ashes.
Pat Cummins, the captain of Australia, has acknowledged that he may use “aggressive” tactics to demonstrate his fitness for the Ashes opener after suffering a back ailment.
Due to lumbar bone stress, Cummins will miss the forthcoming white-ball series against India and New Zealand. George Bailey, the chair of selectors, anticipates that Cummins will captain Australia in the November 21 Ashes opener in Perth, but there are no assurances.
Cummins on his setback
For the first time since the severity of his injury was made public, Cummins expressed his desire to stay off of the sidelines and not watch the much awaited series.
“That would be devastating, so we’ll be doing everything we can to try to be right for that and try to make a few decisions a little bit closer, but confident” Cummins told reporters in Brisbane on Wednesday. “Do the rehab right and give it a good crack.
“It’s a big Ashes series. It doesn’t get much bigger, so I think you’re willing to take a few risks and be a little bit aggressive to try and play as much Test [cricket] as you can.”
Cummins backed himself to be able to prepare for the first Test without any match practice, echoing Bailey’s remarks on Tuesday.
“At this stage of my career I feel like I can probably get up to speed a bit quicker than when I was 18 or 19,” he said. “Back then you probably feel like you need to play a few [Sheffield] Shield games or one-dayers. I’m pretty confident even if I don’t get a chance to play a Shield game, I’ll can get up to speed.”
Cummins workload
Despite bowling a total of 60 overs in the three Test matches, Cummins pulled up sore after Australia’s 3-0 thumping of the West Indies in July.
Australia has bowling and captaincy options to cover for Cummins if he is unable to play. Scott Boland, who took a hat-trick in Australia’s last Test match against the West Indies in July, would most likely be called into the pace attack.
“Gave it kind of another month [after the tour], have had a pretty quiet month to help settle it down and had another scan on Monday which [was] not terrible, but kind of enough to know that there’s a little bit there and kind of got to be careful for the next little bit,” Cummins said.
“It doesn’t feel too bad, but I’m obviously not bowling or doing too much at the moment. With bone injuries, you really just want to settle it down.
“I’m still doing a bit of gym, but no real running, no bowling. Get that right and then we’ll build up to the summer. We’ve got loads of time, there’s about 12 weeks until the first Test. We’ll see how the next little bit pans out.”