Inside Australia’s emergency plan after Cummins injury bombshell

Australia’s captain Pat Cummins is set to miss the start of the Ashes and may miss the whole series after a fresh round of scans revealed his back stress problem had not yet healed.

Cummins, who had previously expressed confidence that he would be able to take a significant part in the series, is no chance for the opener in Perth, starting on November 21, and may even miss all five Tests, leaving Steve Smith as the likely stand-in skipper to face Ben Stokes’ England team.

According to two sources with knowledge of confidential discussions but not authorised to speak publicly, 32-year-old Cummins had the fresh scan last week to clarify his progress ahead of the Test summer and was told that while the stress “hot spot” was healing, it has not yet cleared up enough for him to bowl.

The update will likely set back his return to play to the last few weeks of the year, making it very hard for him to get up to speed in time to take part in a tightly scheduled Ashes series. Cricket Australia declined to comment.

Cummins is considered so vital to the direction of the team that he is set to be part of the camp for the whole series, regardless of where his fitness is at, providing calm, considered off-field direction and advice to teammates and counsel for likely stand-in skipper Smith.

While currently still in New York with his wife Dani, Smith will soon return to state and national duty. New South Wales would have preferred for Smith to be available from the start of the Sheffield Shield season, but the national selectors acquiesced to the vice captain’s desire to spend some more time in the US before the start of his home summer.

Smith has long maintained that his international career is on a series-by-series basis, but Cummins, head coach Andrew McDonald and selection chair George Bailey are eager to find ways to keep the 36-year-old in Test cricket until at least the 2027 Ashes tour of England.

A best-case scenario for Cummins may be that he returns to the team at the back end of the Ashes, much as Scott Boland has reinforced the pace battery in recent summers. Boland now looks certain to be the third quick in Perth behind Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc.

The loss of Cummins with a back stress injury is a massive blow to Australia’s chances of retaining the Ashes urn that Australia have held since 2017.

England have not won a Test on Australian soil since 2011 but will be given a major fillip by the news they will not be facing Australia’s strongest leader and fast-bowling spearhead.

“That would be devastating,” Cummins said in Brisbane a month ago when asked if there was a possibility he would miss the start of the Ashes. “We’ll be doing everything we can to be right for that, [and] make a few decisions a little bit closer, but [I’m] confident we’ll do the rehab right and give it a good crack.

“This far out, it’s hard to know, but we’re trying to make sure we’re doing everything right to be right for Perth. It’s a big Ashes series, [it] doesn’t get much bigger, so you’re willing to be aggressive and take a few risks to try to play as much of the Tests as you can.

“I’ve had a really good run as fast bowling goes, and I’ve been really well looked after, which has got me through this many Tests. I’ve bowled a lot over the last few years, something was bound to happen at some point, but hopefully get this right and don’t miss too much cricket.”

Cummins’ first state captain, Simon Katich, has raised the possibility of a left-field selection among the pace bowlers as a back-up option – the speedy Henry Thornton, who recently starred for Australia A in India.

“I reckon there might be a smoky as well, a young kid from New South Wales who is now in South Australia who has just played recently for Australia A, if that’s any indicator of how the selectors might be thinking,” Katich told SEN Radio. “That’s Henry Thornton, he’s 28 now, but he’s still young in terms of being inexperienced.

“He’s only played seven first-class games, but he’s a wicket-taker, and that’s something they might be looking at because we know Pat Cummins cracks games open by taking wickets in bursts of two or three at a time. But I think Scott Boland comes first in if he misses that first Test.”

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