Cummins has felt a lingering soreness in his back since Australia’s Test series win in the West Indies almost two months ago, with scans since showing lumbar bone stress.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old is desperate to feature in this summer’s Ashes and has vowed to take an aggressive approach to prove his fitness if required.<\/p>\n
A timeline has not yet been set for Cummins’ on-field return and he is prepared to go into the Test summer without playing a Sheffield Shield game if required.<\/p>\n
But the quick said he would likely want to be back bowling at least a month before the first Test against England in Perth on November 21.<\/p>\n
“I’d imagine (I’d want to be bowling) at minimum a month out, maybe six weeks,” Cummins said as Cricket Australia announced Chemist Warehouse as a sponsor.<\/p>\n
“But I’ve not thought that deeply about it yet.<\/p>\n
“It’s still a bit of a wait and see. We’ve got plenty of time, so we’ll map a way back when we get closer.<\/p>\n
“At the moment for the next few weeks it’s pretty light. Not much running and zero bowling.”<\/p>\n
Cummins’ injury scare has highlighted concerns around Australia’s depth for the summer.<\/p>\n
Scott Boland remains the fourth member of the cartel and ready to step up in case of injury, but below him numbers are dwindling.<\/p>\n
Speedster Lance Morris has been ruled out of the summer requiring his own back surgery, while Jhye Richardson’s Ashes availability is questionable on return from a dislocated shoulder.<\/p>\n
Rising Queensland quick Callum Vidler has also been sidelined long-term with a back injury, while fellow young star Mahli Beardman is also nursing a stress fracture.<\/p>\n
“We feel really well placed,” Cummins insisted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“A lot of planning goes in. It’s not just a month before, it’s 12 months out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Someone like Jhye Richardson hopefully he will be available for some of the summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“There’s (Michael) Neser, Brendan Doggett was part of squads last year, Sean Abbott. So I’m really confident in our depth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Obviously there is a bit of Shield cricket and white-ball cricket before that to make sure everyone is up and raring to go.”<\/p>\n
England are gaining fitness ahead of the Ashes.<\/p>\n
Speedster Jofra Archer returned to Test cricket in July and sent down a devastating 4-18 from nine overs against South Africa in an ODI earlier this week.<\/p>\n
“(He’s) got quicker. It was box-office bowling,” England coach Brendan McCullum remarked afterwards.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I thought it was brilliant and not just his pace but his skill, his ability to shift it both ways and to test batters with the steep bounce he gets.<\/p>\n
“He’s a proper cricketer, hence why we’ve taken our time with him to make sure that we give him every chance to be in the biggest series of all of our lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He’s going to be a huge player when we get to Australia, as a number of others are.”<\/p>\n
The tourists also expected to have fellow express quick Mark Wood on deck, while Ben Stokes has also resumed training following a shoulder injury.<\/p>\n
Chris Woakes, who was man of the series in the 2023 Ashes, has also not given up hope of playing after opting against surgery on his dislocated shoulder.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cummins has felt a lingering soreness in his back since Australia’s Test series win in the West Indies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-131175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}