Pat Cummins lifts the lid on when he could return to play cricket again after Aussie skipper is ruled out of the remainder of the Ashes series

Pat Cummins has insisted that he’s aiming to be back playing again for Australia at February’s T20 World Cup, after he was ruled out of the remaining two Ashes Tests.

The Aussie skipper returned to take six wickets during Australia’s 82-run victory in Adelaide last week, but after his side took an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series, Cummins is now being rested for the fourth and fifth Tests.

The risk of playing the 32-year-old New South Wales bowler in back-to-back Tests straight after overcoming a troublesome back injury was deemed to great.

It also came after the skipper had condensed his recovery period down from four months to just six weeks, to be fit for the Ashes series.

‘I’m feeling good, so got through Adelaide unscathed so pretty happy,’ Cummins said to Channel 7 on Boxing Day.

‘As of a few weeks ago, was still coming back from a back injury so playing back-to-back Test matches was pretty high risk.’

Australia will wrap up their series against England in Sydney in the first week of January, but the Baggy Greens will have very little time to celebrate their Ashes victory, with Australia set to face off against Ireland in Colombo for their first group match of the T20 World Cup.

And Cummins admitted he had set his sights on travelling to the subcontinent to play in the World Cup.

‘Cool our heels for a little bit with T20 World Cup next month,’ Cummins said.

Coach Andrew McDonald added that Cummins will undergo further assessments on his back before a decision is made on his return.

‘I’m assuming, he’ll have a check-in scan at some point and gather more information around where his back is at,’ McDonald said.

‘Looking forward to the World Cup, whether he will be there or not, I can’t really say.

‘It’s quite grey at the moment. We’re hopeful.’

Nathan Lyon was also ruled out of the final two Tests after having undergone surgery this week to remedy a hamstring injury.

‘He had surgery a couple of days ago, so he’ll have a lengthy layoff, I don’t know exactly, but will be at least a few months,’ Cummins said about Lyon.

‘Bit of a long road ahead for him, but he’s done it before so hopefully he’ll be back.

‘It was a big one, so surgery, and he has his crutches in the change room at the moment so we wish best… it was a shame but he put a brave face after the Test.’

With Lyon and Cummins both missing out on the fourth Test in Melbourne, Australia opted to deploy a five-pronged pace attack, with Jhye Richardson and Michael Neser coming into the fold.

And depending on your perspective, a record day of Boxing Day wicket carnage was either a function of good bowling, or a ‘shocker’ of a green top MCG pitch.

The 20 wickets are the most taken on any day of a Test match in Australia since 1951, when 22 fell on the opening day of the Adelaide Oval Test against the West Indies.

Former England captain Michael Vaughan led the criticism, but Neser and his fast-bowling counterpart Josh Tongue predictably gave the pitch the thumbs-up.

‘This first-day wicket is a shocker. It really is,’ Vaughan said on Fox Sports.

Neser, who took four wickets on Friday, was asked if the day-one pitch did too much.

‘I’m a bowler, so no,’ he said with a grin.

‘You’re going to get an array of wickets, going around Australia.

‘Finding that right combination of bat and ball – you can’t judge a wicket until the end of the game.’

Similarly, Tongue was seeing no demons in the pitch after he snared five wickets.

‘If you get the ball in the right areas, which I felt like we did today as a bowling unit, you’re going to get your rewards,’ he said.

The spectre of another two-day Test in this series loomed large at stumps on Friday – night watchman Scott Boland hit a boundary off the last ball of the day to leave Australia 0-4 in their second innings.

After England won the toss, they blasted Australia out for 152, but then were destroyed themselves for 110.

Cricket Australia lost millions of dollars in revenue when the first Test in Perth did not reach day three.

But Neser said the pitch could change dramatically for day two and be much more batter-friendly.

 

The flurry of wickets meant debate over the pitch completely eclipsed talk earlier on day one about Australia going into the game without a front-line spin bowler.

Vaughan’s compatriot Stuart Broad was similarly non-plussed as England followed Australia’s batting collapse with an even worse first-innings performance.

‘The pitch is doing too much if I’m perfectly honest,’ Broad told SEN.

Brett Lee and fellow Fox Sports commentator Alyssa Healy were divided on whether the pitch was offering too much.

‘l use the word ‘sporty’, and I’ve often said, look, it’s a batsman’s game, we’re here to see batsmen score runs, but l think it’s a bit too sporty in my opinion,’ Lee said.

‘I think there’s a little bit too much in it.’

Healy, whose husband Mitchell Starc led the demolition of England’s top order, was rapt.

‘I personally like it … it’s a hot topic of conversation in our household, it’s never how good the bowling is, it’s always about how bad the batting is when we talk about the wicket,” she said.

‘But sometimes the bowling is just too good.’

Earlier on Friday, TV commentator and former Test legspinner Kerry O’Keeffe was defiant after Australia had gone with an all-pace attack.

‘Spinners are cockroaches, you just can’t kill us,’ he said on Kayo Sports.

‘We’re like Ringo Starr in The Beatles, we’re the worst singer, but you need us to blend in.’

In no small part because of the ample displays of legspin genius he produced at the MCG, the Southern Stand was renamed in Shane Warne’s honour.

Since Warne took his 700th Test wicket in the 2006 Boxing Day Test, Australia had always played a spin bowler at the MCG.

But with Lyon sidelined, this is the third time in five Tests that Australia have not featured a full-time spin bowler.