According to Cricket Australia’s high performance manager Pat Howard, Pat Cummins is out of scheme of things for the four-match Test series in India, starting February 2017.
The promising prospect Cummins did not please the selectors before Howard hinted it’s not the ideal time for the bowler to visit India.
“You look back at the sort of bowlers and combinations needed for that tour. Jason Gillespie was our most successful bowler of the 2004 tour. You have to look at the strike bowler or the workhorse,” Howard said.
While making irregular appearances in limited-over cricket for the national side, the Sydney-born Cummins suffered has fractures and other injuries which have kept him away from Test cricket for long.
“While Pat Howard, CA’s general manager of team performance, and Cummins himself have earmarked next year’s home Ashes series as the logical point for the quick to return to the Test set-up, there are some on the board who have asked why shouldn’t be considered for the four-Test tour of India,” Cricket Australia report noted this week over the plan of saving Cummins for the best.
Howard stated the ‘workhorses’ have had success at spin-friendly sub-continent wickets on their backs in the past before speaking about Cummins, who seems more like a fragile element in the longer format of the game.
“There’s the decision between whether or not it is India or the Ashes,” Howard told ABC Radio.
Earlier in this month, Brett Lee had urged the national selectors to let fit Cummins “off the leash” in India.
“We are taking it series by series,” Howard said of Cummins’ chances in international future.
However, to provide a space for the Big Bash Twenty20 League, the domestic Shield competition has been given a breather until February.
“And before that you’d need one or two Shield games to be get back in,” Howard said of Cummins’, who hasn’t played a Sheffield Shield match in six years for New South Wales side.
Cummins bagged eight wickets in recently concluded three-match Chappell-Hadlee One-day international series against New Zealand, which included his career best figures of 4 for 41.
He played his only Test in November 2011 against South Africa in Johannesburg and now his return in the national side has come down to next summer’s Ashes tour.
As the CA selectors have been hesitant, Howard stated Cummins, who is playing for Sydney Thunders in BBL, would be starring against Pakistan in the five-match one-day series in January.