Pat Cummins will sit out Australia’s white-ball trip to South Africa next month, choosing a conditioning block over three ODIs and three T20Is in Darwin, Cairns and Mackay. The Test captain wants to be at full fitness for the Ashes later in the year.
Cummins had already been left out of the current five-match T20I series in the Caribbean, where Mitchell Starc and Travis Head are also resting. Josh Hazlewood was originally due to stay on for the West Indies T20Is but will now return home, with fellow quick Xavier Bartlett drafted in. Spencer Johnson’s side strain has ruled him out entirely; hard-hitting batter Jake Fraser-McGurk replaces him.
While Hazlewood is expected to face South Africa in August, Cummins will remain in the gym and on the massage table. He outlined the plan in Kingston: “I’ll have a good training block for the next couple of months, six weeks or so,” Cummins told reporters at Sabina Park. “Probably not bowling, but lots of gym work. [My] body feels pretty good, but there’s always little bits and pieces you’re always trying to get right and then build up for the summer. So it’ll probably look like white-ball [cricket]…we’ve got some [matches against] New Zealand, India, potentially a Shield game and then into the home summer.”
Cummins still holds the ODI captaincy yet has led the side only twice since lifting the 2023 World Cup. An ankle problem kept him out of February’s Champions Trophy and was managed carefully through the recent Test series in India. “[My] body feels pretty good, but there’s always little bits and pieces you’re always trying to get right and then build up for the summer,” Pat Cummins said when pressed on how close he is to top speed.
Selectors see the opening rounds of the Sheffield Shield as pivotal to settling a top order that remains fluid. Sam Konstas and Usman Khawaja have two innings left in the West Indies to strengthen their cases; Cameron Green will hope his second-innings fifty in Grenada sets up a productive spell with both bat and ball before England arrive.
Green is also part of the current T20I squad and is likely to tour South Africa. Konstas has been pencilled in for Australia A’s four-day matches in India in September, while Khawaja, barring a late change, will wait until Queensland’s Shield opener to find form.
“There’s a lot of Shield cricket to come and some Aussie A stuff as well,” Cummins said when asked about selection pressure. “I think [if] you do well at Test level, any time it’s going to kind of make your case more compelling. I think there’s a bit of a connection to the summer, but it feels a long way away at the moment.”
The reshuffle hands Bartlett, 26, a welcome chance to press his case at international level. The Queensland quick impressed in Major League Cricket earlier this month, taking 18 wickets in 11 innings with lively pace and a deceptive slower ball. Fraser-McGurk, meanwhile, continues a rapid rise that started with eye-catching knocks in last season’s BBL.
For Cummins, the focus is simpler: restore the body, bank overs later in spring and hit the Ashes at full tilt. Australia hope the cautious path now pays dividends when England land in November.
