{"id":209133,"date":"2025-10-13T02:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T02:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/209133\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T02:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T02:10:10","slug":"australia-captain-pat-cummins-back-injury-update-recovery-timeline-first-test-doubts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/209133\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia captain Pat Cummins back injury update, recovery timeline, first Test doubts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian<\/a> captain Pat Cummins<\/a> has cast doubt on his fitness for the start of the upcoming Ashes<\/a> series, confirming it is “probably less likely than likely” that he will feature in the first Test against England in Perth starting November 21.<\/p>\n

Cummins has been sidelined by a lower back stress injury<\/a> revealed after the team’s tour of the West Indies in July.<\/p>\n

With the injury failing to progress as hoped, it raises major doubts about his ability to feature in the entire home Ashes series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"Australian<\/p>\n

Australian skipper Pat Cummins looks on.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters at Kayo’s summer of cricket launch on Monday, the 32-year-old said he is targeting a return early in the series. However, that goal is complicated by the fact that he has not yet resumed bowling training.<\/p>\n

“I’m running today, and every second day,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Each run is getting a little longer, and then we kind of get into bowling next week.<\/p>\n

“Probably a couple of weeks away before putting on the spikes and bowling out on turf.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a good couple of weeks. Each session feels better and better.”<\/p>\n

The right-arm quick will likely need a minimum of four weeks of training to build his bowling loads sufficiently before he can target England’s top order.<\/p>\n

\"Australian<\/p>\n

Australian captain Pat Cummins celebrates by lifting the Ashes Urn after successfully retaining the series in 2023.\u00a0Alex Davidson via getty Images<\/p>\n

Cummins confirmed that timeline.<\/p>\n

“You want at least probably a month in the nets,” he said.<\/p>\n

“If you’re playing a Test match, you want to make sure you’re right to bowl 20 overs in a day and you don’t really have to think about it.<\/p>\n

“Four weeks is pretty tight, but I reckon somewhere around that mark.”<\/p>\n

Even then, Cummins admitted it would be difficult for him to have an uninterrupted series.<\/p>\n

“It’s a bit early to know,” he said of how many Tests he could expect to sit out.<\/p>\n

“It’s pretty hard to go from not bowling at all to [playing] five Tests, so [the] first step is trying to have a shot at being right.”<\/p>\n

Cummins conceded the injury was frustrating, but offered perspective by noting his largely injury-free run since returning to the Test side in 2017.<\/p>\n

\"Pat<\/p>\n

Pat Cummins with the match ball during the WTC final against South Africa on at Lord’s.\u00a0ICC via Getty Images<\/p>\n

While the paceman was injury-plagued early in his career, forcing him to wait six years between his first and second Tests, issues have been rare since.<\/p>\n

“Some days I’m kind of annoyed because it’s the Ashes and a big summer,” Cummins said.<\/p>\n

“Other days, I’m a little more realistic. The last seven or eight years, I’ve had uninterrupted home summers, so I’ve had a really good run as a fast bowler.<\/p>\n

“Someone like Joshy (Hazlewood) has missed the last couple of times. He’s been a little more unlucky, so maybe it’s my turn.<\/p>\n

“With such a big summer ahead, you want to be in the mixer. Even with the India one-day series and T20 series, I wish I were a part of that.<\/p>\n

“If it’s not to be, it’s part of cricket getting injuries.”<\/p>\n

In Cummins’ absence, Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc will lead Australia’s pace attack, with Scott Boland the likely replacement for the injured skipper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian captain Pat Cummins has cast doubt on his fitness for the start of the upcoming Ashes series,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-209133","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\/209133","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=209133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}