‘I doubt I’ll play’: Three changes loom for Boxing Day as Cummins reveals Bazball surprise

Australian captain Pat Cummins said he is unlikely to play in the Boxing Day Test, while he also admitted his surprise at England’s abandonment of Bazball at the Adelaide Oval.

Cummins played his first competitive match since the West Indies tour in July in Adelaide, successfully completing a rapid recovery mission from a lumbar stress issue that had cast doubt over his involvement in this Ashes series at all.

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The skipper played a key hand upon his return, taking three wickets in each innings as Australia won by 82 runs, and hardly looked like he missed a beat.

But with the Ashes secured and only four days between day five in Adelaide and Boxing Day, he is set to sit out in Melbourne in order to manage his body.

“First of all, I felt great,” Cummins told reporters at the Adelaide Oval.

“Just like a normal Test match. Bowling mid 30s overs, if anything, because I came into this Test match quite fresh, I feel my legs are still decent.

“Sometimes you’re hanging on to some residual soreness from previous games. So, feeling really good.

“As for the rest of the series, we’ll see.

“We had a pretty aggressive build up knowing that there’s an Ashes there to be won, and we thought that was worth it.

“Now that the series has been won, there might be a sense of job’s done and let’s kind of reassess the risk.

“We’ll work it out over the next couple of days.

“I doubt I’ll be playing Melbourne and then we’ll have a chat about Sydney.

“Certainly before the series, it was while the series is alive lets take on the risk and have a crack at it.

“Now that’s it done, I think we’ll need to have a chat about it.”

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Cummins’ comments mean he is once again set to hand over the captaincy reins to Steve Smith, provided Australia’s champion batter recovers from the illness that ruled him out in Adelaide.

It also means that there will be at least two changes to the Australian bowling attack with Nathan Lyon leaving the field with a hamstring injury on day five.

Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland have been the survivors so far, playing all three Tests, but Cummins said he expects both to front up at the MCG.

Starc pushed through all five Tests in the past two summers and has not missed a Test since the series opener of the 2023 Ashes at Edgbaston in a remarkable feat of endurance.

For Boland, on the other hand, he is entering uncharted waters.

The Victorian has played Australia’s last four Test matches, having never played more than three on bounce previously as he would regularly be left out in favour of the trio of Cummins, Starc and Josh Hazlewood.

“At the start of the series, you always anticipate that you’re going to have chop and change a little bit,” Cummins said.
“Brendan Doggett and ‘Nes’ were the two spare bowlers here. Jhye’s (Richardson) been bowling in the nets and a few other guys who are playing in the Big Bash are keeping their workloads up, ready, in case they’re needed.

“Like always, give it 48 hours. See how everyone pulls up.

“But at the moment they both seem good.

“Good luck to anyone telling Starcy or even Scotty that they’re going to miss a Boxing Day Test if they’re fully fit.”

Cummins was asked whether there is a part of him that is tempted to roll the dice in order to push towards a third Ashes whitewash in Australia this century.

He acknowledged that he would love to play the remainder of the series, but with Australia facing a T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka and India, a Test tour of South Africa, a home Test series against New Zealand, a Test tour of India, the 150th anniversary Test against England, an Ashes tour of England and an ODI World Cup in the next two years, he needs to play it safe.

“Absolutely, particularly the amount of work I’ve had to do to get up to speed in Test cricket, you just want to play everything now,” Cummins said.

“Boxing Day is a huge Test. Sydney’s a home ground. You just want to keep it rolling on, but probably need to be somewhat pragmatic at times, but yeah with goals solely on winning this series.

“We’ll save this for a few days when we get closer to Boxing Day – people start thinking it’ll be pretty cool to push on to 4-0 and then Sydney do it 5-0.”

If Australia can push towards a whitewash without Cummins, it would only rub salt deeper into England’s wounds.

Ben Stokes’ side have been ridiculed for seeming to abandon their Bazball approach in Brisbane and Adelaide, scoring at 3.27 and 3.42 runs per over in each innings of the third Test.

Cummins suggested that he was surprised that England did not go down swinging.

“They seemed to have changed their style quite a bit game to game,” Cummins said.

“I think that can happen in overseas conditions, you’re always trying to fight for a method that works.

“Day two I thought I was surprising. It was 40 odd degree. It was hot, a very flat wicket and they shut up shop for half the day – (which) I was pretty happy with.”

The word from the England camp throughout the Test match had been that they had not consciously slowed down, however, and Stokes reiterated that message in his press conference.

“The big learning from individuals in this game, and that’s an evolution for some guys in this team, you never want to take away their ability to go out score their runs in the way that they think is best going to suit them,” Stokes said.

“Marrying the skills and the ability they have with the mentality it takes to be an international sportsman – put those two together and I know we’ve got a very exciting Test team, who can be even more successful than we have been in the last four years.”