Australia still expect Pat Cummins to be available for the first Ashes Test, even as the captain deals with stress in his back.<\/p>\n
The star quick will miss the upcoming T20 tour of New Zealand and back-to-back home white-ball series against India due to lumbar bone stress.<\/p>\n
Cummins has been cleared of stress fractures after a routine scan had earlier picked up an issue, but will be racing the clock to be fit for Australia\u2019s opening Test in Perth against England starting on 21 November.<\/p>\n
Chairman of selectors George Bailey has backed Cummins to lead Australia out at Optus Stadium to begin the defence of the urn.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere still feels like there\u2019s plenty of time,\u201d Bailey said, referencing 80 days until the Ashes starts.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the back of the scan, there\u2019ll just be continued rehab and monitoring around that. Full expectation [is] that Pat would be right to go come the first Test.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cummins was expected to skip the tour of New Zealand but his preparations for the Ashes have been disrupted with the 32-year-old ruled out of the three match one-day series against India in October.<\/p>\n
If Cummins is not able to prove his fitness in time to face England, Australia have captaincy and bowling options to cover him.<\/p>\n
Scott Boland would almost certainly be called into the pace attack, with the Victorian spectacularly taking a hat-trick in Australia\u2019s previous Test against West Indies in July.<\/p>\n
Former skipper Steve Smith has also covered for Cummins numerous times since the pacer became Test captain in November 2021.<\/p>\n
Cummins missed a Test during the 2021-22 Ashes due to Covid-19 protocols, while he didn\u2019t play in the final two games of Australia\u2019s tour of India in 2023 due to the death of his mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite this planned de-load period, Cummins has experienced some ongoing lower back pain following the West Indies Test tour,\u201d a Cricket<\/a> Australia spokesperson said.<\/p>\n \u201cFurther investigation has identified a level of lumbar bone stress that will require further management over the coming months.\u201d<\/p>\n Left-arm quick Mitchell Starc has meanwhile announced his retirement from international T20s in a bid to preserve his Test career.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to From the Pocket: AFL Weekly<\/p>\n Jonathan Horn brings expert analysis on the week’s biggest AFL stories<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Starc\u2019s 79 wickets in 65 T20Is places him second on the all-time list for Australia behind Adam Zampa.<\/p>\n \u201cTest cricket is and has always been my highest priority,\u201d Starc said.<\/p>\n \u201cI have loved every minute of every T20 game I have played for Australia, particularly the 2021 World Cup, not just because we won but the incredible group and the fun along the way.<\/p>\n \u201cLooking ahead to an away Indian Test tour, the Ashes and an ODI World Cup in 2027, I feel this is my best way forward to remain fresh, fit and at my best for those campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n Australia\u2019s squad to tour New Zealand for three T20s includes left-armer Ben Dwarshuis, alongside Josh Hazlewood and Sean Abbott.<\/p>\n Mitch Owen returns after being concussed in the second game against South Africa with Matt Short named after recovering from a side strain.<\/p>\n Experienced all-rounder Marcus Stoinis also returns to the squad for the series starting on 1 October.<\/p>\n Australia T20 squad<\/p>\n Mitchell Marsh (capt), Sean Abbott, Xavier Bartlett, Tim David, Ben Dwarshuis, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Matt Kuhnemann, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Owen, Matthew Short, Marcus Stoinis, Adam Zampa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia still expect Pat Cummins to be available for the first Ashes Test, even as the captain deals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-108771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}