![\"Usman](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/749f9f17943c9cb6d61d2f0202de4d8c556ce463.jpg\")
Camera IconUsman Khawaja has been retained in Australia\u2019s squad for the second Test of The Ashes. Credit: Darrian Traynor\/Getty Images<\/p>\nUsman Khawaja has been retained in Australia\u2019s squad for the second Test of The Ashes amid his battle with a back problem, giving no clues over the shape of the top-order for the day-night contest at the Gabba.<\/p>\n
But hopes Pat Cummins could return from injury for the second Test of the series have been quashed, with the Australian captain to travel with the team to Brisbane while not being officially added to the squad for the pink-ball game, which starts next Friday.<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s squad for the second Test is unchanged, with Cummins not coming into contention for selection despite having another lengthy bowl in the SCG nets on Friday morning.<\/p>\n
Cricket Australia\u2019s squad announcement said the 32-year-old would head to Brisbane to \u201ccontinue his preparations\u201d.<\/p>\n
The captain was sidelined before the start of the series by a bout of bone stress in his back but has put together several training sessions operating at his top pace over the last two weeks.<\/p>\n
Cummins trained alongside hamstrung seamer Josh Hazlewood on Friday morning, who was bowling off a shortened run-up.<\/p>\n
Rumours Hazlewood may miss the entire series which emerged during the Perth Test have been played down but no timeline for his return has been made public.<\/p>\n
As he battled back spasms which emerged on the first day, veteran opener Khawaja was not able to take his place at the top of the order in either innings of the first Test in Perth, which saw Australia cruise to an eight-wicket win inside two days.<\/p>\n
Camera IconUsman Khawaja has been retained in Australia\u2019s squad for the second Test of The Ashes. Credit: Darrian Traynor\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
He eventually appeared at No.4 in the first innings after Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith were forced to shuffle up from their customary positions but made only two before departing caught behind.<\/p>\n
In the second innings, Australia boldly opted to have No.5 Travis Head open the batting, where the South Australian smashed a match-winning 123 from only 83 balls to create sustained debate over whether the move should be made permanent.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters earlier in the week, Australia coach Andrew McDonald turned down the opportunity to guarantee Khawaja\u2019s place in the side for the game at his adopted home ground, saying any call would firstly be dependent on his fitness.<\/p>\n
In the absence of Cummins and Hazlewood, Scott Boland and Brendan Doggett completed Australia\u2019s pace attack alongside man of the match Mitchell Starc in Perth, with veteran seamer Michael Neser also in the squad as cover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Usman Khawaja has been retained in Australia\u2019s squad for the second Test of The Ashes amid his battle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,588,85,33383],"class_list":["post-313555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-the-ashes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313555","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=313555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}